


Pseudechis

by Gem_Gem



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, BAMF John, BAMF Sherlock, Dark Sherlock, Dominant John, Dominant/Submissive Sherlock, Gen, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Naga, Naga Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Sherlock is Dangerous
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:51:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_Gem/pseuds/Gem_Gem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What John knew of the world is turned upside down on one very normal day in an eccentric and old shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tongue of honey with mesmeric eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure this has been done before, a Naga Sherlock...so...I did one!  
> I love Nagas!
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter Title inspired by The Serpent's Legacy - Poem by Victor James Daley

John had somehow stumbled into a strange, quaint, shop filled with burning, sickly-sweet incense and flickering candles, and dangling herbs. The air was thick and pungent and he cleared his throat with a small cough as he looked around, arching up on his toes as he noticed that it was seemingly empty. He had wanted a valentine’s gift for his current girlfriend, something more than a box of chocolates, something that would suit her character, something she could cherish, and from the outside it had looked eccentric and interesting, windows filled with old books and strange looking jars and flowers. His girlfriend loved antiques, adored the history that came with such an old object, decades of untold mysteries clinging to every crevice and corner. The last gift he had gotten her had been something as simple as a pocket watch but she had snatched it with delight and kissed him over and over again for several minutes, chattering about the date it had been made and whom it was that had crafted it.

John wandered down an aisle of books and picked one out at random, arching his brow at the thick leather casing and golden lettering. The title was in Latin and John frowned as he tried to recall all he knew until an archway into the back of the shop caught his attention. Putting the book back he moved closer and peered into the bowels of the building with piking interest, squinting against the dark lighting and taking a few steps forward when he tried to look for the shop owner again without success.

The scent of the incense in the front of the shop tapered off into a moist, humid sort of smell as John went deeper. Cabinets filled with more books, boxes, jars and tubes of various sizes were stacked to John’s left, half filled with coloured liquid or encrusted in crystals, whereas on John’s right sat a row of what looked to be birdcages, fish tanks, and other such crates full of dead, stuffed animals that John had never seen before, creatures with sharp, razor teeth and bulbous, glazed, eyes. Near the end was a large, glass, metal-framed box that was filled with vegetation and crammed between two aged looking wardrobes. It looked like some kind of enclosure and as John walked over curiously, he craned his neck to get a look within.

A huge, black, scaled coil of some gigantic snake was cushioned and half buried in a bundle of leaves and moss. John gaped at the size of it and stepped closer, almost pressing his face against the glass to see the entire length of it. Curled up like it was, John couldn’t estimate exactly how big the thing was but it looked bigger than any snake he’d ever seen. John ducked and crouched, hands pressed to the warm surface of the glass as he tried to find the head of the snake, half annoyed when thinking it to be hidden under the leaves. Why stuff and pose it that way? Normally the dead animal would be posed in a way to show it off, not like it was merely sleeping. John frowned in frustration and huffed, misting the glass with his breath.

Wiping it clean John straightened to his feet again and took another look around the dim and dank room. Obviously he was not allowed in the room, although it held the same strangeness of the front of the shop, it was darker and more cramped, things piled haphazardly on top or against one another. There had been no sign that John had noticed though; perhaps he should exchange words with the owner? Wherever they were?

Turning back to the black coils John tried once again to find the head of the snake but settled for gazing at the snake scales as closely as he could instead after several failed attempts, making out a pattern of reds and purples amongst the oil-like black with a twitch of a smile. A small shuffling noise made John shoot a look at the other strange stuffed, caged, animals lining the wall, then at the archway he’d entered by, but the shuffling noise hadn’t come from there, or from anywhere else in the back room, it had come from the glass box in front of him.

Slowly, John glanced back and stared with a sudden thrill of danger and burst of shock as the coiled tail tensed, shuddered, and shifted against the mound of leaves and moss. John couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, as the thick, scaled tail uncurled and loosened slightly in a languid stretch; the movement created a gap between two coils and from it peered a flash of greenish blue humanoid eyes that suddenly locked onto John’s with a jolt, intensely sharp and penetrating. John stopped breathing at the look, dread crawling up his spine and prickling the back of his neck as the pupils, once rounded, contracted into two thin slits and then pulsed.

Before John could take a much needed gasp of alarm, two white hands shot out of the gap and heaved it wider to allow the torso of a man to push out in a lithe writhing of pale flexing muscles. Where the head of the snake should be was the top half of a man, skin and scales merging and intermingling at a human waist and hips, and John tipped his head back as he looked up the stretch of ivory coloured skin to the face framed with black curls.

Suddenly, without warning, the half-man half-snake fluidly bent down to stare at John at head level, the glass the only thing separating their faces as it gazed unblinkingly into John’s eyes.

The creature had a strange noble sort of face, with sharp, high cheekbones, a shapely mouth, and almond-shaped eyes that squinted with abrupt attention. Scales framed the tops of his cheeks, the sides of his face, and the arch of his forehead, contouring his pale skin in oil-black, red and purple. His hair was just as dark; almost pitch black in the dull light of the room and from the parting of one curl John saw what seemed to be a pointed, scale-covered ear.

Only when the thing blinked did John snap out of his earlier trance and John scurried inelegantly towards the archway to escape, his heart racing and his mind a deafening barrage of questions.

“Wait!”

John skidded to a stop immediately and glanced back, breathing hard. The creature was leaning against the glass with his palms, the ends of his fingers sharply clawed and his tail twisting over itself in a hypnotising writhing that reminded John of the tightening of a snake around its prey.

“Let me out,” The creature beseeched, voice muffled by glass, and pointed to a hefty latch and padlock at the top right hand corner of the box. “The key is in the drawer of the cabinet opposite. Please, hurry before she gets back.”

John frowned and shook his head, backing up, “No.”

“I won’t eat you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Right,” John scoffed, looking to and from the archway with indecision. John knew he should go, should dash away and never go back, but for some reason he couldn’t. He peered out into the front of the shop for a moment, finding it still as empty as before, and then carefully, cautiously, made his way back.

“What are you?” John asked as he stepped close to the glass again, peeking once at the lock keeping the creature imprisoned before he turned to rummage through the cabinet he’d been directed to before. 

“Where is she?” The creature asked instead of answering.

“Who?”

“Who do you think? The shop owner?” The creature snapped.

John picked up the only brass key in the otherwise empty drawer and turned back around, “I don’t know…”

The creature saw the key with delight, the tail body bunching and sliding around his waist in his excitement, “Yes! Unlock it!”

John fingered the key, twirled it between his fingers, and looked up at the creature, “What will happen if I do?”

“Then I’ll be free!” He hissed. “Hurry!”

John made to move towards the lock but then rested the key on his chin, “You sure you’ve thought this through?”

The creature blinked at him and then sneered, “Excuse me?”

“I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that you are a great, bloody, big snake man thing… So, let’s say I let you out, then what? What will you do? Where will you even go? People are going to notice something off about you, you know, what with the tail and the scales and the claw-nails.” John said, rocking on his heels, calmer than he had been before. “Also, I don’t trust you—bloody hell, I can barely even believe in you! Either I’ve gone insane or you’re real and the whole world is insane.”

“If you let me out and help me escape…I shall grant you three wishes--”

John looked at him nonplussed, “Pretty sure that’s genies.”

The creature rolled his eyes with a snarl, looked towards the archway and then pressed closer to the glass, “Fine! What do you want? I’ll give you anything; do anything! You’re looking for a gift for your beloved, aren’t you? I can help; I can…can find you the perfect gift for her! Although I don’t see a point, seeing as how she’ll be breaking up with you after Valentines Day anyway—How about I tell you who’s been taking your clothes from the laundrettes? I can even tell you the real murderer of those two children three weeks ago! You are a solider, a Doctor, you like to help people, yes? I can help you get justice for the children!”

John stared at him in silence and then frowned suddenly, “How do you know who the real murderer is?”

“Because it’s obvious!” The creature complained.

“Not to me.” John replied, fiddling with the key idly. “And how did you even know about that? Being coped up in here and everything?”

“The owner, she sometimes lets me watch the Television if I’ve been…good,” The creature grumbled, glancing at John through curls of his hair.

“Sounds nice. Why on Earth do you want to escape so badly?” John teased, eyeing the lock with hidden intention and stepping closer.

The creature scowled, “She experiments on me one moment and then treats me like her pet the next. She kidnapped me! Took me from my home, from my family, and stuck me in this damned glass box! It’s imprisonment—slavery even! Wouldn’t you want to get out if our positions were reversed? I am not a common grass snake; I do not deserve to be treated like this. The fact that I killed her brother and she sought this as a sort of revenge stunt doesn’t justify that she--”

“Wait a moment, say that again? You killed her brother?” John asked, poised hand dropping to his side.

“Yes. So? You’ve killed people before,” The creature sniffed haughtily.

“That was different. Completely different. You murdered--”

“A murderer,” The creature interrupted, flashing John a mouth of sharp teeth and elongating fangs. “The man was a murderer. He killed some of my kin as well as his own. I couldn’t very well go to the police, and even if I could, they’re all utter morons anyway, they’d let the man walk!” 

“Where have you come from?” John asked softly a few moments later, suddenly changing the subject as he adjusted his grasp on the key. 

“Obviously not from around here, now stop asking me stupid questions and unlock this cage!”

John sighed and opened his mouth to reply but the sound of footsteps stilled his tongue and made his heart jump, skin prickling in sudden apprehension. The creature reacted to the noise also, moving back away from the glass, head twitching upright and pointed ears trembling as they swivelled in a slow sweep. The footsteps were soft and scuffling, moving around the front room of the shop and then turning a moment later towards the archway. John turned watching the shadow of a woman slipping over the wall as she neared the back and formed an excuse, apology, and a plan to explain his actions, before the creature surged against the glass with a determined and anxious look.

“Hide!”

John huffed a slight baffled laugh, “What?”

The creature locked eyes with him, “Hide. She will kill you.”

“You’ve got to be--”

“Think about what you’ve done, what you’ve seen. You have just found something that the rest of the world has no idea about. You have sneaked into the back room of a shop, a place you are not allowed to be, and rifled through a dangerous woman’s possessions! Do you really think she will let you out of here alive? Think she will just give you a little slap on the wrist and send you on your way? You can’t leave knowing what you do. Hide! Now!” The creature growled quietly, pointing to a narrow space between some cabinets meaningfully and then curling up tightly with a loud rustle of scales. 

John hesitated a moment, glanced back at the archway just as the woman was hobbling into the room, and ducked, crawling and squeezing into the space the creature had pointed out, peering out at the woman as she moved closer.

She was a woman in her mid thirties with deep red hair tied tightly in a high ponytail that swayed with her shambling walk; a cane made out of three twisted lengths of wood was clutched in her right hand, and John squinted as he eyed the disabling wound to her leg, noting the claw like grooves and missing chunks of muscle in her thigh. John was slightly surprised she’d have such a wound on show, her dress tight and revealing and short.

The woman stared in at the creature and then lifted the cane and tapped, loud and sharp, on the glass with a sadistic looking grin, “Oi! Grumpy, wakey, wakey!” 

The creature tensed into a tighter ball of coils in response and John silently shifted on his knees with a frown, keeping in the shadows but leaning around to get into a better position. The woman turned suddenly on her heel, and John jerked back out of sight; she rummaged through a cabinet drawer, first gently and then with more violence, and John looked down at the key in his hand.

“Where is it?” She hissed, throwing a few objects that smashed and rolled under the creature’s tank. “Where is it?”

“Lost something?” The creature drawled.

The woman rounded with a snarl, “What have you done? Where is it?”

“How can I possibly do anything, being locked away in here?” The creature asked smugly, leaning back on his tail with a flex of muscles. “You must have misplaced it.”

The woman narrowed her eyes, hit the glass with her cane and then moved in close, her breath fogging the surface in erratic blooms of white, “Someone came in here…”

The creature rolled his eyes, “Yes, someone skipped merrily into your extremely dull shop, came into the back, and took the key and only the key, then left. Brilliant.” 

The woman turned and swept an angry look around the room, prompting John to back up a little more. The creature waited until she turned her back and then motioned for John to bash her on the head. John frowned and declined with a look and a shift of his body, and the creature rolled his eyes and motioned harder until the woman turned back around and he looked nonchalant. 

“Where is it?” She hissed. “Who’s here?”

“No one you crazy woman,” The creature retorted. 

The woman tilted her head and the creature swallowed thickly, backing up as she stared at him madly, her eyes wide and rocking as she looked him over and then turned again to take another angry glance of the room, hobbling over to one of the wardrobes. She gazed at it and then wildly bashed it in with the end of her cane, flinging the broken door open to sweep it within, smashing and breaking the bottles and boxes littered within. The noise was almost deafening in the small, overcrowded room and John covered his ears, cringing as she began screaming, low at first and then louder and louder, screeching highly when she heaved the wardrobe to the floor with an almighty thud.

“Who’s here?” She hollered.

The other wardrobe was given the same treatment and John slipped further back, picking up a glass bottle by his feet with a scrambling hand. He waited until she knocked the wardrobe to the floor, aimed and then lobbed the bottle near the archway with a smashing of glass. The woman turned sharply on her heel and hobbled with gathering speed over to inspect the glass, almost falling over in her haste. She bent, picked up a long shard and turned to creep back into the front of the shop with a low, insane cackle. 

John shot out of his hiding place and grabbed for the lock without another thought, stuffing the key into it and turning it with an echoing click. The sound made him flinch and he looked at the archway, hearing the woman returning with an enraged shriek. John turned back to the tank and froze; the creature was close to the glass again, pupils narrowed and then pulsing, and his smile sadistic and wicked as he flashed John his sharp teeth.

“You!” The woman screeched, pointing a trembling finger at John as she clambered to get to him.

The creature surged upwards, knocked the top of the tank open and slithered out in a sudden and lighting fast motion, closing the distance between him and the woman in seconds. The woman’s eyes widened in horror as the creature hissed and grabbed for her head, and she was barely able to take another breath to scream before the creature savagely broke her neck, twisting her head all the way around and then yanking it off completely. Blood spurted thick and fast into the air, dropping heavily on the floor with her lifeless twitching body and splattering over the walls and cabinets either side of her, running in small rivers to fill the grooves in the floor. 

John stumbled back in shock, face pale, and he jerked into motion as the creature slowly looked over his shoulder at him, the head of the woman dangling in his claw-like grasp. He climbed over whatever was in his way, falling and twisting his ankle when something broke under his weight. The creature was on him in an instant and John punched out, fists throbbing with pain at the creature’s inhumanly strong body. He was dragged along the floor and then into the air, carried by one strong arm around his waist as the creature all but crawled up the wall of the room, digging the talons of his free hand into the plaster with incredible force. 

The creature circled the room, grabbing and mixing some liquids from different bottles, using his tail as an extra limb. The creature smirked and threw two bottles; one smashed on the body, eating away at the flesh with a loud hiss, and the other connected with one of the upturned wardrobes with a billow of flames. With the room on fire, the creature climbed upside down over the ceiling with John and entered the front room, heading for a door that led to the upstairs and breaking it with one slash of his tail. 

Wood splinters hit John’s face, scratching his cheeks and then the back of his hands as he shielded himself a second later. John grunted and struggled, winded as the creature tightened his grip and slithered up the stairs, threw a window open and moved up onto the roof, sliding away with John at an otherworldly speed.


	2. Dangerous Debts

Frozen by fear John clutched to the arm and shoulder of the creature as it moved over the rooftops with surprising ease for a massively heavy, snake-man. The creature was smirking widely, full rows of sharp teeth visible and fangs still elongated; his curls dangled before his pulsing eyes, and he squeezed John to his side as he turned upside down under a bridge and scuttled and slithered to the other side with a loud rustle of scales and a thump of his tail, carrying John up another building and then over another, and another, the creature’s powerful body undulating and swaying against John’s own.

The creature smelt strongly of vegetation, musk, heat and blood, and John glanced over at the billowing clouds of smoke from the burning shop they’d left, thinking of the strange books and artefacts stored within. A thought surfaced as he recalled the back of the shop once more and John puzzled over it with a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. Had the dead, stuffed animals that were unique and unknown to John, had they been real once? Had they been living, breathing creatures imprisoned until they starved or angered the shop owner to such a degree that she killed and stuffed them? Had the creature currently carrying him seen it happen? Seen each and every one perish, never free of it’s cage, knowing that he would soon suffer the same fate?

The image of the woman’s head wretched from her neck popped into John’s mind next and he grimaced in fear, wishing he had his firearm at hand as he glanced back up at the smirking face of the creature. The creature had killed the woman as easily as if she had been but a mere insect underfoot, and John was terrified that he’d be next. He berated himself for letting the thing loose as easily and quickly as he had, it had been a thoughtless action, almost instinctive, and John wished with every fibre of his being that he could turn back the clock and never enter the damned shop to begin with. 

John had no clue as to the creature’s intentions or where he was taking him, or even if the creature knew where he was going in the first place. They were moving in broad daylight along beams, cranes, walls and rooftops, somehow unseen by the public. The creature scattered a family of pigeons with clear animalistic glee and John shielded his eyes from a huge cascading wave of feathers, knowing the instant it happened that one of the birds must have been caught in the eager, sharp claws of his captor, life ended just as abruptly as the shop owner’s. 

Sirens blared passed when they were moving around a chimney and the creature paused, watched as the fire engine sped down the street towards the forever growing, dark, smoke cloud, and growled lowly setting off again quickly. The curls of the creature bounced and flowed about his head, revealing his pointed, twitching ears and the swirling pattern of scales that framed his hairline and flowed down his nape to follow the dip and line of his spine, bursting out to outline his shoulder blades, ribs and hipbones attractively.

John gasped when the creature abruptly stopped and doubled back, wriggling over a specific roof with purposeful movements, hanging off the edge briefly to survey the area with a penetrating sweep, muscles tensed and head cocked, ears trembling and then seeming to prick up higher. 

“Hm,” he murmured deeply, the sound vibrating through John’s skull and down his spine. The creature adjusted John, drummed his claws into John’s side, and then wrapped his tail around him tightly, leaving both arms free to fiddle with a window as he twisted and arced to pick the lock with long, deadly, blood-soaked claws.

The place the creature had picked turned out to be John’s small bedsit, and John frowned with sudden interest and shock and watched from his place wrapped up in hot scales feeling more and more like prey as the creature successfully opened the window, leaned the pale shape of his torso through cautiously and then shot in with a rapid propulsion of muscle.

John was dropped on a chair and the creature disappeared into John’s small bedroom, writhing over the bed sheets and up the walls, over the ceiling and into his wardrobe, pupils wide with curiosity. The creature looked to be rubbing and spreading his scent or at the very least smearing John’s own to his body in a dance and squirming that reminded him oddly of a cat. Left in a sort of stupor, John stared after him and only snapped out of his trance when the creature shot close to lean over him in reaction to John’s mobile ringing, teeth bared.

“It’s…it’s just my phone,” John assured him, digging for it nervously with one hand and lifting the other in a peaceful gesture to ward the creature off; it was his girlfriend who was calling and John gawked at the flashing screen for a moment or two, not knowing if he should answer or ignore her; the creature’s words from before suddenly filled his mind and he scowled, shooting a glance at the throbbing pupils of the interested snake-man. “How do you know she’ll dump me after Valentines Day?”

The creature grinned at him smugly and crawled into John’s lap heavily, “Answer it.”

“Get off! Get…get off and get back,” John said, leaning into the cushioned back of the chair he was seated in as the creature invaded his personal space, eyes on the phone with intent. “What do you want with me? Why--?”

“Answer it!” the creature replied, irritably, rolling his eyes at John’s expression. “I’m not going to eat you, how many more times?”

“I just saw you behead a woman with your bare hands!”

The creature sniffed and shrugged, “Didn’t eat her though, did I?” he asked, curling his tail slowly around John and the chair as he reclined back on John’s legs, head propped up by the chairs armrest and arms folded, claws hidden. “Anyway, you helped me escape, why would I hurt you? I owe you.”

The way the creature uttered the last three words and leisurely smiled at the end made John shudder involuntarily. “Why don’t you just leave now? I thought you wanted to go back to your family?”

“Answer your phone.”

John gazed down at the sprawled out humanoid torso weighing him down on his seat, mesmerised by the improbable patterns of scales, and glowered when the creature lifted his arms above his head, baring his stomach in an act of submissiveness that was wholly purposeful and entirely false. The abdominal muscles flexed and bunched as the creature shifted position, pressing more snugly to John’s waist, and a side of the huge scaled tail rubbed the side of John’s head a little too roughly to be a caress. 

“Hello,” John greeted after taking a long breath, forcing his voice steady and trying to ignore the huge draping and shifting tail as it brushed the back of his neck and fell over his shoulder. 

“John! Thank God—for a second I thought you were near that fire on the outskirts of town! You okay? You sound a bit…off?”

The creature stretched his torso over John’s lap languidly and reached for his ankle, applying heated pressure to the swelling there and making John’s breath hitch sharply. The heat soaked into the injury quickly, easing some, if not all of the pain in only a few seconds.

“John--?”

“I’m fine! I’m fine…I…I was…nowhere near it but I can see it. It’s awful…just awful,” John lied through gritted teeth, jerking when the creature untied and pulled off his shoes, suddenly and intensely interested in John’s socked feet with a warbling purr like sound. “Are…are you okay? You weren’t nearby were you?”

“Oh no! No, I’ve been with my girl friends, we went to the cinemas to watch that new rom-com.”

“She’s lying,” the creature muttered shredding John’s socks with his claws and flicking the torn bits of fabric across the room with a look of disgust. 

“What?” John asked him, frowning deeply in protest at the state of his favourite stripy socks but unable to do anything about the devastation.

“I said that I went to the cinemas.”

“Huh? Oh, um, right. Good, how was it?” John asked distracted a second later when the creature rotated his throbbing ankle and then wiggled his toes playfully, scraping his claws lightly up John’s sole with an experimental move that was repeated on the other not a second later. 

“It was really good! I knew it would be, you can tell from the trailer sometimes, you know?”

“Hm-mm, definitely,” John answered absentmindedly, slipping down the chair and under a drooping coil of black scales with a wriggle as the creature rolled up his trouser legs to play enthusiastically with his shins. The fear he had felt before was gone, replaced instead by a prickling annoyance and a warm bemusement as the creature gazed at John’s legs with almost childlike delight, snapping his jaws if only in excitement. 

“Anyway, I was just calling to make sure you were okay—Also, what’s happening tomorrow?”

John stifled a giggle as the creature nosed the hairs on his legs and tickled the arc of his heel with one claw, “Tomorrow?”

“Valentines day, John! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

John fell off the chair in a tangle of the creature’s tail and grunted, buried for a moment before he struggled up, heaving the tail body aside, “Aren’t you just going to dump me afterwards anyway?” John abruptly replied, grumpy and challenging.

“Excuse me?”

“Look, if you don’t want to be with me anymore…just…can you just come out and say it now instead of drawing this out longer than it needs to be?” John sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and kicking out with a quickly muffled exclamation when the creature pinched at him with sharp fingers. 

“Well…I—Yes. I’m sorry, John. It’s not you, it’s really not… I just--”

The creature suddenly snatched the phone from John’s hand and lifted high up on his tail out of John’s grasp, ending the call with a fumble and then wriggling across the room with a threatening hiss as John lunged to grab it back. Pain laced up from his ankle and John grunted, dropping to his knees and glaring over at the creature as he juggled the phone, eyed it up close and very gently used a finger to swipe across the screen with a smile of satisfaction. John felt oddly cold without the heavy, warm, curled body of his tail around him and huffed to himself, moving to climb back into the chair. 

“What’s your name?” John asked after a pregnant pause, massaging and elevating his leg, happy to note that there was no serious damage.

“Hm?” The creature was preoccupied by the phone but lifted his head, peeking at John from his curled fringe with one narrowing eye. “You won’t be able to pronounce it, being human, your voice box is inferior.”

“So…what do I call you then?”

The creature waved a hand, “Pick a name. Anything will do. Anything is better than “monster” or “creature” or “abomination” or whatever it is that you refer to me as in your head.”

John blinked in disbelief and shook his head with a sigh, rubbing his face, “I can’t believe this is happening—what do you want with me? Truly? What is it? Why are you here, in my flat? Why aren’t you slithering off to your homeland, wherever that happens to be?”

“I like it here.”

“But you said you were taken from your family and you wanted to go back--”

“I never said that,” the creature interrupted; focus still on the phone in his clawed hands, tail writhing and rolling beneath him that didn’t fail to catch John’s attention.

“Yes. Yes, you did, you said that the dead woman took you, imprisoned you?”

“I never said I wanted to go back,” the creature smirked. “I just wanted to be free of that cage, which I now am—I’ve been observing you humans for a while, it’s why I can speak your language so well. My homeland is secret, but your kind can stumble passed or inside it from time to time and I watched, I listened, I learned. There are so many different languages of your kind, so many different dialects, and I learned them all...near enough all of them anyway.”

“Okay. Impressive… But surely you want to go back to your family now?” John asked.

“I like it here,” the creature repeated, flashing John a sharp-toothed smile and staring at him in a way that made John’s stomach flip. “Though…I don’t like this place. How can you live here? It’s so cramped! Practically like being back in that bloody cage!”

Arching his tail in an elegant wave the creature stretched it out and glared in frustration at the small space, knocking over the kettle in the small kitchenette with one flick of his tail tip. John winced at the clattering and then clenched his eyes shut when the creature continued to push up against things, hitting over a lamp and upturning a miniature coffee table without care.

“Then go,” John told him, smiling tightly. “I’m not going to stop you. Don’t think I could even if I tried.”

“I told you,” the creature said in annoyance. “I owe you.”

“I don’t want you here!”

The creature dropped the mobile and shot towards John, looming over him with a wild and dangerous expression, face suddenly sharper and intimidating, “You also owe me—I saved you from having your brains smashed in! From the fire!”

“That you started!” John objected, pressing back into the chair as the creature arched down to him, face level with his. “Look, can you blame me for not wanting you here? After what I’ve seen you do, after what you’re capable of? You did just kill a woman.”

The creature eyed him and slid partially onto John’s lap again, warming John’s trousers quickly, “Yes…but she wasn’t a very nice woman.” He replied in a rumble, quirking his mouth when John huffed out an unexpected laugh. “Would you rather me be out in the public?”

John stiffened at the question and the creature arched an eyebrow, “…No.”

“No,” the creature agreed, poking John in the chest with one long claw. “I owe you, you owe me; I’m bond to you through this debt, and mutual respect. Yes?”

John inhaled deeply and lifted his chin, unable to see a way out of it without endangering himself or others, “Yes.”

The smile that grew on the creature’s face made John’s throat dry with panic; he liked him better stuck behind glass. The creature gathered up his tail and curled it gradually around John again, tucking it tightly and securely about him until John was unable to move his arms. The creature squeezed him with a menacing contraction of muscles and a tilt of his head, running the claws of one hand down John’s face lightly, catching the claw tips purposely on the stubble at John’s jaw with interest and leaning closer still to regard John’s features up close. 

John felt the flicker of a forked tongue at his ear and tensed his jaw with a jolt of unease, looking at the creature sidelong as they were pressed chest to chest warmly. The creature looked back and smirked, baring his incisors.


	3. In the snake pit

John had been manhandled into his bedroom later that night and was resting in the hot coils of the creature as he slept beside John, half buried by his own body and only the top of his curly head visible. John’s ankle was still faintly throbbing and he winced, reaching to rub at it only to have the black tail pillowing his head shift and circle around him firmly, dragging John across the mattress, and turning him to face the hooded eyes of the creature. John huffed and glared, leaning back to try and put some distance between them, uncomfortable with the close proximity.

“Must you be so close?” John muttered when the struggling accomplished nothing but increased exhaustion and frustration. 

The creature’s eyes flashed in the dark as he slid suddenly to be nose to nose with John, smile full of sharp teeth, “Yes.” He replied. “You…interest me. Plus, I’ve never been so close to a living human before—we’re disregarding that vile woman, of course, although technically I was never really that close to her physically. Only twice have I ever been within touching distance, once when I had gauged at her leg, and earlier, when I had ripped off her head.” 

John swallowed at the inhumanly wide grin the creature offered at the statement and shifted timidly backwards, putting out a hand when the creature tensed to follow, “There’s nothing much interesting about me, really.”

“Course there is,” the creature assured him, grabbing his wrist in one clawed hand and lifting John’s arm to inspect it with a cocked head. “You are very interesting—A warrior, yet a healer, all in one.”

Looking at his bedside drawer briefly John thought again about his firearm, “How did you know that anyway?”

“You told me,” the creature said, locking eyes with him abruptly. “The way you hold yourself is strictly military…I’ve seen enough of them to recognise the stance.”

“What else?”

The creature looked happily enthusiastic and pushed up to loom over John, running his eyes over him in a rapid flicker, “You served aboard. The tan lines indicate this,” he said, pushing up John’s jumper sleeve roughly, exposing his forearm. “No tan above the wrists, which means you didn’t go to enjoy the sun...”

The creature trailed off into silence, curious about the soft skin of John’s arm, raking his claws lightly through the blonde hair there, delighted by the odd freckle. John watched him uneasily and yanked it away when the creature compared their hand sizes.

“…You also have a bit of a limp, possibly acquired in battle, but it’s partly psychosomatic; as your therapist has probably already mentioned. You’ve been better than you had been upon first being discharged, as you no longer have use of your cane,” The creature continued, snatching up John’s hand to rub a claw over the calluses left by gripping a handle repeatedly. “You all but forgot about the limp upon meeting me, however, which I find fascinating!” 

“What?”

The creature leaned close again, so close that John felt each, hot exhale, against his face, “You must miss it.”

John frowned deeply, “Miss what?”

“Battle. Danger. It’s why you didn’t leave the shop, why you stayed, why you let me out, and why you want to reach for your weapon,” the creature rumbled, looking pointedly at the bedside drawer with a curling smirk, suddenly grabbing John by the throat tightly, eyes flashing again. “Do you think you could take me? Do you think you could kill me? Do you want to? I don’t think you do, even considering what’s happened, what you know I have done, and what I could do to you.”

John spluttered as the creature increased his grip, cutting off John’s air, and he struggled strongly with a heady rush of adrenaline, scrambling at the creature’s muscled arms and chest. The creature’s smirk widened and he pushed down with more pressure until John’s vision became spotted, heart thundering wildly in his chest, and then let John go, leaning back fluidly when John jerked up into a sitting position, gasping and coughing. Each breath was a burst of almost painful pleasure and he sucked in great lungful’s of air for a long stretch of time, staring at the creature through teary eyes. 

“You humans are so delicate,” the creature mumbled, reaching out to touch John, looking amused when John automatically flinched away. 

“What are you?” John rasped, rubbing his throat.

“Humans call us Nãga, I believe?” The creature replied. “Our real name is not pronounceable for you and I don’t think I can translate it properly without butchering it entirely.”

“Naga,” John repeated, swallowing with a grimace. 

The creature, or rather, Naga huffed at his pronunciation but inclined his head in the affirmative and leaned once more into John’s personal space, bending to be at eye level slowly. His pupils were shifting again in an odd pulse and John was momentarily hypnotised, allowing the Naga to cup his jaw and tilt his head.

“You still have yet to give me a name,” the Naga murmured, poking the pulse at John’s neck with the sharp point of one finger, dragging it down to the neckline of John’s jumper. “Yours is John, yes? I heard your now ex-girlfriend say it on the phone.”

“Yes,” John nodded, suddenly wondering why he felt so calm after the mistreatment of before. He looked at the Naga closely and glared with narrowed eyes, grabbing for the Naga’s wrist as he tugged at John’s jumper, cutting some of the stitching. The Naga’s skin was faintly scaled from the elbows down and John couldn’t help but admire the swirling patterns of black that twisted majestically down to cover the Naga’s hand. 

“You’re thirsty,” the Naga stated in a deep baritone that startled John somewhat. “And hungry.”

“Well, yes, I’ve not had anything to eat or drink since before I entered that sodding shop,” John grumbled, hand still around the Naga’s wrist, fingers automatically seeking out a pulse. 

The Naga eyed him silently and then moved back, pulling out of John’s grasp with a small smile, “Go and fulfil your needs then, John.”

“What, you’re actually going to let me be some distance away from you for once?” John couldn’t help but snipe with a scoff, shuffling off the bed and quickly moving to the small kitchenette, picking up the knocked over kettle on his way there and turning on a light. “You’re following me, aren’t you?”

The Naga was braced on his hands on the floor, filling the bottom of the bedroom doorway, and looking more like an eerily dangerous creature in the darkness than he had before, so much so that John felt his heart skip a beat, tendrils of fear spiralling up his spine. The Naga moved forwards gradually, walking his arms and slithering on his tail towards John with curiosity, ears twitching free of his curls and pupils dilating. John touched his throat with his fingertips, almost unconsciously, and then turned to pull open the fridge, reaching inside for some ham, deciding to make himself some sandwiches and a cup of tea, ignoring the late hour and the sound of the Naga’s scales on the carpet. 

Piling his ingredients for his sandwiches on the small counter, John grabbed for the kettle, filled it, and set it aside to brew, shooting the Naga a sideways glance as he appeared at John’s side, head level with John’s waist and eyes locked onto the kettle as it boiled gently. The Naga’s huge tail gathered slowly in the cramped space between them and John sighed through his nose as he tripped over it briefly, almost cutting through his finger with the knife he was using to cut up the bread. The sight of the Naga beside him, arching up to rest folded arms on the counter, focus trained on the kettle, looked completely surreal, and John had to try extremely hard not to burst into disbelieving giggles. He was single once more and apparently, but figuratively, shackled to a creature commonly known as a Naga, doomed to be stuck with the dangerous thing until he thought it better to pull John’s head off too.

When the kettle clicked John stepped over and around the Naga to get it, dropping a teabag into his favourite mug and pouring the boiling water over it, all of which was observed with a sort of curious calculating gaze of his inquisitive companion. John exhaled in frustration when the Naga slipped behind him, pressing into his back and leaning over his shoulder to watch more closely, and John moved further forwards until his hips cut into the counter, unable to get away because the Naga only followed, dragging more of his body up John’s back and bending his torso over John’s head, the human part of his stomach nudging John’s skull. John added the milk, stirred the tea, and then picked up his plate with one hand and his mug with the other, slipping sideways away from the Naga and walking to sit down in a chair.

“No.” the Naga said, grabbing John’s shoulder and pointing back to the bedroom. “Eat in there, with me.”

John thought about retorting and going against the Naga’s wishes, but ultimately shrugged, turned off the light and wandered back, sitting at a small desk with his plate and tucking in with relish, turning on the nearby lamp mid-chew. The Naga crawled across the floor on his hands and watched John silently, lying down on his stomach and cupping his head in one hand. The sandwiches hit the gaping hole that was his stomach and John hummed in pleasure, overlooking the staring Naga as best he could and licking butter from his fingers. The tea was only touched when John had finished his second sandwich and he flinched when the Naga arched up on his tail and sniffed at the mug, lips all but pressed to the rim of it.

“Oi!” John frowned, pulling it away. “Do you mind?”

“Can I taste some?” The Naga asked, leaning one hot hand on John’s thigh as he inclined after the tea. “Let me have some.”

“Why should I?” John scoffed, lifting the mug further out of reach when the Naga slithered onto his lap heavily. “Careful! It’s still hot, you know!—Okay! Okay, wait a second will you?”

John blew into the mug for a few moments and then lifted it to the Naga’s mouth, rolling his eyes when he was made to feed the tea to him instead of the Naga taking the mug himself. Slowly John tipped his hand until he saw the Naga swallow and then pulled it back to watch the contorting of the Naga’s face as he rolled the taste of the tea around in his mouth with scientific interest, a crease appearing between his brows. 

“Don’t like it?” John asked with amusement, resting one hand on the Naga’s tail and taking another sip of tea himself.

“I wouldn’t say that…” The Naga muttered, licking his lips with a long, slow sweep of his forked tongue, and nosing his way back into the mug to lick at the liquid like a dog.

John wrinkled his nose in disgust, “Really? God—Here, take it, I don’t want it anymore,” he told him, forcing the mug into the Naga’s hand. 

“Why not?”

“You just stuck your tongue in it!” John exclaimed. 

The Naga arched his eyebrow at John, perplexed, “So?” 

John rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration and shot a glance at the Naga as he curled an arm around John’s shoulders, pushed the mug into John’s mouth with a quirking, mischievous smile, and bent his head close enough to stroke John’s temple with his curls. Refusing to drink it John pressed his lips together tightly and turned his head away, annoyed when the mug followed and the Naga’s smile broadened.

“Drink,” The Naga ordered. “You’re thirsty, you need it. You shan’t be allowed to have another drink until much later so it would be beneficial for you to drink as much as you can now.”

“What do you mean I “shan’t be allowed to have another drink”? You’re going to prevent me from--?”

The Naga nudged the mug roughly into his teeth, “Yes. I want you to focus on other things. Getting a bigger place to live being one of them.”

John scowled and let out a long breath, reeling back the urge to smack the mug out of the Naga’s hands in rebellion. He reached to take hold of it but the Naga moved it away and John fisted his hand, parting his lips after a momentary battle of stares and permitting the Naga to feed him a few more mouthfuls of tea before the Naga then reached for the remaining two sandwiches decisively. 

“Come off it, I can feed myself,” John protested, grabbing the Naga’s wrist and tugging the food away. He froze as the Naga hissed indignantly but bravely and stubbornly took a bite, keeping eye contact throughout, watching the Naga watch him. 

When John had finished, he wrestled the mug from the Naga’s hand, swallowed the rest of the tea, and then sat back. In the orange light of the desk lamp, John regarded the whole stretch of the Naga’s body, unable to be anything but amazed at how long and how heavy and how unreal the entire sight was, following the flow and arch of the tail as it bunched over the carpet and led out the door a few inches. John couldn’t be sure how long it was exactly, could barely wrap his head around the fact that it all but filled his bedroom; the longest snake that John had heard of was one just short of 50ft, and as he gazed at the tail of the Naga, he wondered if it too was the same sort of size.

The overall size and strength of the Naga still terrified John, he knew that at any moment the Naga could strike, could kill him, and he’d end up much the same way as the owner of the shop had. He couldn’t help but go over the scene repeatedly, watching her head get torn off over and over again in his mind in an endless loop of blood and horror. How had she captured the Naga and encaged him, if he was so strong? Surely he could have broken the glass of his cage? Why then had he not done so? There were so many questions, most of them about how such a creature could be real, but John tried not to think too much on it, fearing he could go mad; unless he already was.

John looked up into the Naga’s face, distracted briefly by the gleaming scales at his cheekbones, “I can’t just up and leave, you know,” he finally mumbled, returning his gaze to the Naga’s eyes.

“Why not?”

“Well for starters I don’t have the money to move. In fact, the whole reason I’m here in the first place is because I’m low on crash,” John explained.

The Naga’s puzzled and annoyed expression cleared, smoothing into one of understanding, and he dipped his chin, “Ah, yes. I had forgotten that humans need such things—though I believe that’s easily rectified.” 

John looked at him bemused, “It is? How is it?” 

“Don’t worry about.”

“If you think you’re going to slither yourself into a bank and steal a heap of money, you’ve got another thing coming,” John said sternly, annoyed when the Naga grinned. “I mean it, don’t you dare—I won’t let you.”

The Naga’s ears perked up, “And how, may I ask, are you going to stop me, if I do indeed choose to steal?”

John gave him an austere and angry look, “You owe me, remember,” he reminded him, inwardly smirking when the Naga narrowed his eyes. “You want to repay me? Then you can’t steal, in fact, you can’t do anything unless I okay it.”

The Naga’s entire face seemed to change in an instant, becoming monstrous and deadly, and John only had the time to inhale sharply in apprehension before the Naga roughly gripped his jaw, shoved his head back, and bared his throat. John struggled uselessly, trapped against the chair by the weight of the Naga’s tail and the callous grip of his hands.

“You do not own me,” The Naga snarled. "I am not your pet! You cannot order me or contain me; I will do whatever I please, if I so wish it. Do not forget that I saved your life; I could have let that woman kill you, let her feed you to me, piece by piece, until there was nothing left, no trace that you ever stepped foot in that shop! Or I could have let you burn, escaped with my life intact and left you to suffer in the scorching arms of the raging fire!”

The Naga’s fangs were long and glinting, and John stared into his violent eyes tensely, “All right, easy! Fine, fine, but I won’t use stolen money, I won’t. If you want somewhere bigger to stay, then there’s nothing stopping you from going out and doing just that. You don’t have to stay with me; you don’t have to owe me, if anything we’ve technically settled it anyway, if you think about it. I let you out, and in return you saved me, yeah? So... it’s done! Everything is repaid!”

“I won’t steal anything,” The Naga replied at last, suddenly softly spoken and easing up on his grip of John’s jaw. “And we already established that you wouldn’t want me running amok in the public—I am bond to you, but I am not your pet!” 

“Fine! That’s…that’s fine,” John grunted as the Naga’s claws pinched his cheeks. “Let me go.”

The Naga released him slowly, stroking the side of John’s face in the process, “You’re lucky.”

John frowned at the quietly spoken words and rubbed his chin, “…Lucky?”

The Naga shifted and slid off John’s lap leisurely, writhing up the bed and squirming onto the sheets in a languid sprawling that travelled all the way down his body to the tail tip; the tail then caught John in a sudden clasp and lifted him from his chair strongly, carrying him over to be pushed into a nest of scaly coils on the bed beside the human torso of the Naga. The Naga’s demeanour was lethargic and soft, but John saw the glint of his teeth and the flash of his eyes, and cautiously moved back. 

“The light is still on,” John mumbled, looking for a way to distract the Naga.

With an abrupt whoosh of air the tail whacked the lamp to the floor roughly and the room was pitched into darkness, “Better?”

“You didn’t have to be an arse about it,” John retorted with a glower that only served to amuse the Naga, whom chuckled deeply and covered himself with more of his tail, draping a heavy length of it over John’s legs, warming him like a thick, hefty blanket. 

It took John at least another half an hour to finally be relaxed enough and tired enough to slip into slumber, and he sighed through his loosely parted lips as his eyelids drooped. The last thing he saw, before they closed altogether, was the Naga staring at him with calculating and probing eyes, which seemed to track over John’s face in a drifting dance, as if John was an unfinished puzzle waiting to be completed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback fuels me!


	4. The Direction of Control

John woke up alone and cold in the harsh light of the morning, and sat up, first puzzled, and then panicked. Where was the Naga? John jumped from the bed, ignoring the quick flare of discomfort from his ankle, and rushed around the small space of his apartment, finding it empty with his heart in his throat. He wasn’t sure if he was pleased or concerned about the emptiness and turned to survey the living room space, righting the knocked over lamp idly as he noticed the way the carpet had been shifted by the weight of the Naga’s vast tail; he followed it in the next second, remembering the way the tail had writhed and filled the floor like a living rug made from shiny scales. 

A breeze wafted across John’s cheek and he turned to the sight of the open window, curtains billowing in a flutter of soft fabric. The sky outside was overcast and dull, the sun bleaching half the sky a murky white and grey; the shop was still smoking faintly, making a dark cloud of smog that swirled and twisted like a snake. John slammed it shut in one quick motion and rushed back into his bedroom to check the window in there, locking it tightly and backing away from it with a nervous wringing of his hands, touching his neck in the next moment, the sensation of the Naga’s claws ghosting over his skin.

He waited and listened agitatedly for several long, tense, minutes, and then bustled around the bedsit, getting fresh clothes on and checking the news for any information about the recent fire. As the television blared he checked the drawer for his gun, having mixed feelings about finding it untouched; the Naga had known about it, so why hadn’t it been moved or hidden? 

It was a familiar weight in his hand and warmed slowly as he gripped it and loaded it with practiced and precise movements. Slipping it into the waistband of his trousers, John pulled out his laptop and powered it up, checking the windows and the TV tensely; he researched the word “Naga” and scanned the websites available, opening tabs and tabs of information to switch between, and even searching the address of the aforementioned shop, once it was finally brought up on the morning news. 

According to the newscaster, which was backed up by the shops website page, it was a mismatched sort of shop that mostly housed antiques, as well as a small library about myths and legends and historical cultures of lost and present civilisations, plus several items related to the supernatural world of witchcraft and spiritual cleansing. The fire had devastated the back of the shop and part of the front before it had been put out, and John gazed at the destruction, listening with a frown to the newscaster as she explained how one entire mutilated body had been found in the upstairs bedroom, wrapped in rags soaked in some sort of oil and scented water; the head of the woman had been found in the room where the fire started and for now puzzled the police as much as the animal bones did. It seemed as though the woman had been keeping her dead brother in her bedroom, and John shuddered as he recalled the crazed look in her face as she noticed the missing key, the comprehension at having an intruder, and the screech upon finding John in front of the cage, key in hand, before her life was abruptly cut short with one violent moment of pure revenge. The Naga’s face when he had glanced over at John, had been dark and menacing, splattered with blood and split by a wide, jagged smile.

John shook his head, bookmarked the shops webpage, and turned back to the information concerning the Naga. The Naga was apparently apart of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, mythology; semi divine beings that were half human and half cobra, strong and dangerous who lived in some sort of underground realm occupied with palaces decorated with precious gems. They were guardians of treasure and symbols of fertility and reincarnation, controlling and associated with water.

“Sure,” John murmured to himself with a snort, flicking his gaze briefly at the closed windows again with an anxious rolling of his stomach. 

Nagas were meant to be minor deities and therefore had no known weaknesses, something that put John on edge and made the shape of his gun more prominent where it was pushed into the small of his back; surely that wasn’t true for the Naga he seemed to be stuck with? Seeking out more information, John looked up several species of snake, including the king cobra, swallowing thickly at the mention of venom. Was the Naga venomous? He had fangs but John wasn’t sure if they held any sort of venom. Everything John read made him more nervous, more terrified, but oddly more excited and unwavering with the overall plan he had created for the reappearance of his scaly guest. 

When he looked up from the screen it was to the image of the Naga at his window, as if John’s very thoughts had summoned him, and John jumped to his feet, putting the laptop aside slowly and shutting it as casually and steadily as he could. His gun gave him confidence and he lifted his chin, remaining on the spot and not walking over to unlock the window as the Naga probably expected him to do. The ghosting of the Naga’s claws around his throat and the tail squeezing him firmly in a grip that could crush all the bones in his body, made him even more resolute and he fisted his hands and waited, keeping eye contact with the Naga unwaveringly, staying rooted to the spot. The Naga could smash the glass, but John somehow knew that he wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t risk it, no matter how much confidence the Naga portrayed, John knew he wasn’t stupid enough to bring attention to himself at that moment, in fact John was pretty sure that the Naga’s threats about going out into the public were just that, empty threats. 

The Naga narrowed his eyes at John, tapped on the window, scraped a claw down the surface piercingly, and then picked and broke part of the frame as he got it open and slithered inside with a soft but heavy thump of his tail. In one of his hands he held a skull, claws curled into the empty eye sockets and supporting the jaw, and the Naga put it down gently, almost affectionately so, staring at John with an analysing and attentive gaze.

“Technically, it wasn’t I who stole this,” the Naga mumbled as the last of his tail slid in through the window, wrapped around a bag that he dropped at John’s feet. John didn’t need to look inside it to know what it was. “So there is no reason to be upset over it, nor to delay moving any longer than is strictly necessary.” 

“Where did you get it from?” John asked, subtly shifting his stance and trying to work out the weakest point of the Naga’s body; John supposed it was the human torso and tracked his eyes along the expanse of the Naga’s chest and abdomen, happy when the Naga was suddenly distracted by the TV. 

The torso was just like any other male chest, apart from the fact that the Naga didn’t seem to have nipples or a navel, and was completely hairless; only scattered here and there with patterns of dark scales that glimmered red and purple in the light. John gazed at where the scales were situated, as he took in the sight of the Naga’s ribs and collarbone, momentarily amazed at the body structure; the scales outlining the Naga’s ribs seemed to be there as protection and John dropped his gaze to where they tapered off in consideration.

“The shop,” the Naga replied after a moment in a voice that expressed how stupid John was being, and he dipped his head and wriggled closer to watch the shifting of images on the screen, ears perking up at the news of a recent disappearance, head tilting as his focus shifted; though he continued talking as if it hadn’t. “She stole it—her and her brother did a lot of despicable deeds. The police have yet to discover the secret passage to her basement, which came as no surprise to me. Once, or rather if, they do, there might be uproar…”

John walked behind a nearby chair, “I don’t want it. Take it back.”

“You need it for a better place to live,” the Naga scoffed, still taken by the television, leaning far too close to be able to see the entire screen properly. 

“I don’t want it,” John repeated, tensing when the Naga turned to look back at him with a frown and a wrinkle of his nose. “Take it back.”

“No.” The Naga retorted, gradually arching up a little higher on his tail with the soul purpose of intimidation and regarding John with suspicion and sharp curiosity. “…You hate it here. You’ve been--”

“What do you want with me?” John interrupted. “And don’t give me that bond or debt bollocks, what is it you really want, what is the real reason you want me?”

The Naga was still and silent for a moment, face eerily blank and static, like sculpted marble, but then he twitched and changed, suddenly looking feral, and lunged towards John with a growling hiss, claws outstretched and fangs glinting. John jerked backwards, and with an experienced and dexterous movement he grabbed his gun, swung his arm, and cocked it loudly, aiming at where he hoped was the creature’s heart. The Naga stopped straightaway and curved back lithely, skidding across the carpet, the barrel of John’s gun inches from the Naga’s stomach; John had been fully expecting the show of wild dominance and as such had stood in the way of a few obstacles to slow down the sudden attack. The Naga moved back looking surprised and then angrily sullen, his eyes narrowed, pupils contracted to thin slits and face pinched.

“You should have taken it,” John said, casually with a stiff shrug of one shoulder, delighted that the Naga was afraid of the weapon. “You knew where it was, after all.”

The Naga huffed through his nose and lowered to the floor in a show of submission that John felt promptly suspicious of, a feeling that paid off in the following second when the Naga’s huge tail tensed and lashed towards him across the floor. John hooked his foot around the leg of the chair he was standing behind and shoved it aside, then kicked it forwards across a rug to block the assault. The Naga smirked, apparently thrilled at John’s actions, and shot forwards again with a hiss; but John turned just in time and grabbed him by the jaw with one hand, applying as much pressure as he could whilst shoving his gun up under the Naga’s ribs violently, finding the place where the scales didn’t cover.

“I will shoot you,” John snarled, pushing the gun harder into soft pale skin, twisting it a little, enough to leave a mark. “Don’t think I won’t.”

The Naga stiffened completely, mouth held shut by John’s hand, but teeth still visible as he pulled his lips back with a show of vehemence. John increased his grip as much as he could, wondering if it was doing anything at all to the creature that was twice as strong as him, perhaps more. The Naga growled low in his throat, flexed his claws which were still poised for a strike, and rubbed his tail over itself agitatedly, though did nothing more; and John pulled him down until the Naga’s head was low and upturned uncomfortably, mirroring how the Naga had positioned John’s head in the night. John was working by pure instinct and he took a moment to collect some of his composure and calm the wild beating of his heart. 

“Right, let’s try this again, shall we—what do you want with me?” John asked, prodding the Naga with his gun for emphasis and moving to clutch the Naga just behind his jaw, leaving him room to speak.

The Naga pursed his lips and looked away stubbornly, glancing back at John tersely with his ears trembling when John shook the Naga by the head impatiently, “As I said before, I like it here. You humans, some of you at least, intrigue me, I want to know more about you, about this city and what goes on within it. I want to stay,” he mumbled. 

“And you’re using me as a means to stay here?” John asked.

“In a way,” the Naga sighed. “But there also, truly, is a bond. My people, we live by a set of rules, all of us, rules that are…difficult to break, I can’t say why or how, they just are and they’ve been around for hundreds of years, perhaps longer. You released me, helped me, and saved me, in doing so you created a bond between us. It is partly the reason why I saved you in return.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“I wasn’t lying when I said you interest me, John,” The Naga replied with genuine fondness that sharpened into something akin to hunger.

John eyed him warily and motioned at the skull that the Naga had brought with him along with the bag of money, “What’s with the skull?”

The Naga smiled wickedly but John shook him again and it faltered and smoothed into a less malicious one, “A friend…of sorts.”

“It’s a human skull.” John stated.

“Yes. Do you think you were the only one to stumble upon me? The only human to discover that vile woman’s secret?” The Naga huffed, dropping his arms to his side leisurely. “Sometimes she’d do it on purpose, entice and trap people.”

“Why?”

The Naga chuckled, face dangerous once more, “She had to feed me somehow.” 

John, suddenly sickened, shoved the Naga backwards whilst keeping the gun trained on him, and watched as the Naga retreated with a small smile, body lowering to the ground and slipping under the table the television was perched upon. At the sight, John pondered if the Naga’s actions and mistreatment of him up until that point had merely been a show of asserting dominance over him, and inwardly grinned at the change, hoping it would last. Taking a few steps forward, John peeked into the bag of cash and then looked at the Naga, who had slipped further under the table tentatively, squeezing almost all of himself in the cramped space and watching John from under his fringe, docile and quiet. 

“How much is in here?” John asked him shortly.

“I don’t know,” the Naga replied softly, looking almost human, but for the scales. “I don’t understand your… currency. I’ve never had any reason to understand it. I just grabbed whatever I could, the more the better, I presumed?”

“And it’s all stolen money? That the shop owner stole from people?” 

The Naga shrugged and waved a vague hand, “More or less. Most of it is from her victims. The dead have no use for their possessions, so she took them, sold them, or stored them.”

John exhaled through his mouth in disgust and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “I see…” he mumbled, kicking the bag lightly, suddenly feeling less sympathetic for the dead woman. “I don’t know what you expect me to do with this. I can’t, in good conscience, use this money to move—but I can’t very well give it in without being questioned about how I got hold of it all in the first place. ”

“Just use it,” the Naga scoffed snippily, half coming out from his place on the floor. “You obviously want to move from this dreadful place, this will help you. In fact, I’ve seen the perfect place on my way back here.”

“Perfect for me, or perfect for you?” John frowned, frustrated.

“Both,” the Naga grinned, sharp teeth just as intimidating as ever. 

John took a step towards him in silent reprimand and the Naga covered his teeth with his lips, slinking back under the table and resting his elbows on a bowed curve of his tail, regarding John with an obedient flicker of his eyes, his ears pressing flat to his head and hiding beneath a drape of curls. He looked unassuming and small, and when John took another step closer he shifted back further, as if offering him as much space as he could as tamely as he could. The Naga looked half human and spoke like a human, but he was quite clearly not one; he was a wild animal, a beast that needed to be trained and shown that John was the alpha in their liaison not him. John liked the unexpected power of control he had over the creature and stepped closer still until the Naga backed up into the wall in a squashed heap of scales. 

John’s mouth twitched up at one side and he looked slowly at his gun and after some long deliberation, lowered it, contented to see no reaction in the Naga’s position or demeanour with the threat redirected. John straightened his spine, pushed back his shoulders, tried to look big and intimidating, and pressed the decocker lever down with a click, narrowing his gaze when the Naga smiled up at him from the shadow of the table. For a moment, just a short moment, John wondered how the Naga would look in a collar and snorted, earning him a curious peek of pulsing eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback fuels me!
> 
> Also, the decocker is a real thing, I swear!


	5. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson

John sighed and looked at the black, shiny, door in front of him for the third time that evening, checking the number on it for the fifth, and then glanced up at the rooftops to find the Naga staring at him, perched elegantly along the stretch of tiles and in clear view of anyone who happened to look up. John glared and gestured roughly with one hand, and the Naga lowered compliantly, bowed his head and slipped back all the way, out of sight, mouth softly quirked. John smirked, still insanely pleased with the control he had over the creature, even without the use of the gun at his back, and adjusted his coat as he finally stepped up and knocked on the door to 221B, fixing the knocker when it tilted at an angle after the brisk treatment. John had gone over and over in his mind about what he should do with the money and with the Naga, but in the end he had settled for what the Naga had wanted and had followed the creature’s instructions to the letter after declining strongly at the Naga’s responding offer and plead of carrying John in his arms half way across town again; John had no desire to be manhandled and transferred like before, no matter how eager the Naga was that he see the aforementioned “perfect place” for them both in record time. 

A part of him still didn’t believe or trust the Naga, and he had almost thought he was walking into some sort of trap until he had stepped out of the taxi and had seen the flat. He found that it was indeed perfect, or as near to perfect as you could get in London; a fact which the Naga somehow had known John would think going by the pleased, wide and smug grin that he flashed down at John from his place between two fragile looking aerials, having had kept up with the cab without much trouble. The place where the flat was situated was in what many would call a “prime location” for London, and therefore was, obviously, extremely costly; thankfully for John he had no reason to worry about costs for that moment, not with his coat stuffed full of notes. The bag the Naga had brought to his feet had been filled with almost five grand when John had finished counting through it all, and John had tried his best to ignore how long and how many bodies it had taken for it to have accumulated to that degree, and had instead taken a big wad of it and hoped to God that it wouldn’t look as suspicious as he thought it did when he slipped it into his pocket. 

John wasn’t sure if he could pay upfront without seeming shifty, though he couldn’t see that it would be much of a problem if he at least asked, as he knew a few whom had paid upfront and in cash without any drawbacks. He hadn’t thought about anything beyond renting out the flat however, hadn’t thought about the continued pay nor where and why the Naga would be staying with him, and how long the control between them would hold before it shifted again to switch back to the way it had been at the start. The Naga was wild, arrogant and frisky, and John knew he would constantly seek attention and challenge him at every given opportunity, picking at any weak points John let slip before the Naga had the upper hand. He reminded John of a young lion cub, or an untrained puppy dog, or any young male for that matter, showing off with displays of intensity and strength to scare away and control anyone opposing him; John wondered how young the Naga was according to his kind and reminded himself to keep a stern eye on him.

When the door to the flat finally opened it was to a stern looking man who loomed forebodingly in the doorway with his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes narrowed and cold. John pulled on his best and friendliest smile, and tried not to react to the sudden ominous presence of the Naga whom had leaned back into view, looking as if he wanted to slit the man’s throat by the way his claws were raised and lengthened. John scratched his eyebrow and signalled, once again, but very subtly, for the Naga to retreat, half wondering if the Naga’s odd reaction was to do with protecting John from the obvious menacing figure before him or not.

“Hello,” John started, holding out a hand. “I’m John, John Watson, I’m interested in renting 221B? If it’s still available?” 

“Yeah,” the man grunted, ignoring John’s hand. “It’s still available. Come through.”

John nodded and with a quick glance up at the disappearing tail of the withdrawing Naga, he stepped inside, squeezing passed the stony man with reigned in annoyance at being continuously intimidated. The man showed him up some stairs and opened the door to the flat as if it took all his willpower and energy to do so, sniffing grumpily when he swung an arm at the living area and motioned for John to enter. His name, when he eventually introduced himself to John, was Frank Hudson, the landlord, and he walked John quickly through the flat without much care, pointing out key features as if reciting a script, his voice detached and droning. The flat was above Mr Hudson and his wife, who lived in a flat of their own below, as did an unoccupied flat, 221C, that Mr Hudson seemed uninterested in discussing and renting out to anyone, and which made John squint at him with wariness. 

The flat, in its entirety, was wonderfully spacious when compared to John’s bedsit and he happily eyed the large sitting room, complete with a fireplace and mantelpiece, which was cleanly and lovingly furnished in a homely and handsome sort of way. The two bedrooms that came with the flat seemed to make Mr Hudson suddenly guarded when he pointedly looked at John, and so John explained, somewhat easily, that he was thinking of a flat share and that the person who would be sharing the apartment with him would come around later, and that John, himself, would be paying for them both at that point, up front, and in cash. Mr Hudson didn’t seem that put off by the idea of a physical exchange of money and murmured the expenses, snatching the notes from John’s hands even before he had properly pulled the correct amount out.

Mr Hudson then handed over the needed keys, welcomed him to the building with the most impassive of voices, and left without another word, counting the money with a practiced hand. John watched him go with a frown, listened to his tread on the stairs, and then turned to fiddle with the windows, opening them wide and stepping back as the Naga slithered within quickly in eagerness, ears pricked and pupils dilating when he moved with excitement around the living room and in through the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards with a rumbling purr.

“There’s two bedrooms,” John told him idly as he regarded the Naga with something akin to fond amusement. “I’ll take the--”

The Naga shot passed John and entered the nearest bedroom, “I want this one.”

“I don’t know,” John said as he walked in after him. “Maybe it’s best you take the one upstairs, so you’re…you know, hidden and out of the way…”

“I want this one,” the Naga repeated, arching up on his tail in challenge but dropping again with a roll of his eyes when John shifted his stance in reply. “Please?” 

John crossed his arms with a sigh but nodded after a moment, loosening his posture with a shrug, “Fine,” he mumbled, surprised into laughter when the Naga beamed and lunged onto the bed, rolling and wriggling in childish glee.

“I’ll get our things,” the Naga then abruptly said and slid out of the window again without giving John chance to reply, tail tip curling as he disappeared up onto the roof. 

Gawking in shock, John huffed and rubbed his face, taking another tour of the flat slowly as he waited for the Naga to come back. It was unbelievable, completely and utterly bloody insane, how John had gotten to where he was; not too long ago John had been in a lovely relationship with a girl he had been very fond of, happy of his progress with the handling of his limp and night terrors; now he was single again and playing alpha male to a dangerous and violent creature that had only kept John alive because of a bond, mild curiosity and as a means to stay in London. John wasn’t sure how strong the bond was that the Naga spoke of, seeing as the Naga had shown violence and hostile behaviour towards John on more than one occasion, and John knew that if the Naga tried to fight him at random, if John was unarmed and unaware, that the Naga would probably win and end up killing John in the process; John’s muscles still ached from holding the jaw of the creature that morning, and he knew that if he hadn’t have planned for the attack, he would have been really hurt. The thought of a collar and a lead crept up on John again as he moved back to the living room and stood by the open window, and he tilted his head, picturing the Naga muzzled and snarling.

“Yoo-hoo,” greeted a soft, friendly, feminine voice behind John.

John turned in surprise, “Oh! Um, hello?”

“Hello,” The woman smiled, her face apologetic and friendly. “I’m sorry to pop in unannounced, dear, but as soon as Frank—that’s my husband— as soon as he told me about new tenants I had to come and introduce myself. I’m Mrs Martha Hudson.”

“John, John Watson,” he replied, hopping the remaining distance to clasp her hand warmly, happy to find her so unlike her cold and indifferent husband.

“Frank tells me you’ll be sharing the flat with someone else?”

“Ah, yes. He’s--”

“Oh!” Mrs Hudson blinked, looking scandalous and then delighted. “How lovely! Is this your first official place together? Oh, how romantic! On Valentine’s Day as well, what a treat!”

John frowned at her and then smiled tightly, “Heh, yeah, no, we’re not like that. We’re just…friends…of sorts, we’ll be sharing the flat together but we’re not…not like that.”

She looked confused for a moment but nodded, “Is he going to be dropping by soon?”

John felt instantly cold as his stomach flipped sickeningly at her words and he looked sharply back at the open window, rushing over to slam it shut with a stumble, “Um, sorry, I was cold. Uh, yes—no, I mean, no, he’s very busy at the moment. He will be here, just…just not yet.” He told her, fiddling behind his back to lock it.

“Okay, dear. There’s a bedroom upstairs, if you’ll be needing two,” she told him with a smile.

“Of course—we’re not what you think. I’m not gay and he’s…he’s…” John struggled to find the right words and instead waved a hand and offered to see her back to her flat as casually as he could muster, cradling her arm gently. “This is a lovely place! I was surprised it was up for grabs, in all honesty.”

Mrs Hudson sighed with a wobbly smile, “Yes, well…is there anything I can get you? I’m just about to bake some brownies, would you and your…friend like some?”

John patted her shoulder affectionately, “Homemade brownies? How can we say no.”

“I’ll bring them up when I’m done--”

“No!” John interrupted, making her jump. “I mean, I’ll come down and fetch them.”

“It’s no trouble…” Mrs Hudson told him.

“I insist,” John pushed, trying not to be too strict and glancing up the stairs at the open door. 

“Oh, all right then,” she sighed, looking a little disappointed. “Let me know when you’re friend gets here, I’d like to officially welcome him to the building too.”

“Of course,” John nodded, waiting until her door closed before he rushed back up to the flat, shutting and locking the door behind him. The Naga was at the window by the time he turned around and John waved at him, opening it to take a suitcase of his things from the Naga’s strong grip. 

“Why did you close the windows again?” The Naga asked; eyeing John closely as he slid fully inside, the “friend” skull in his hands and the bag of money once again dropped at John’s feet. “Never mind, that’s not important, what is important is I’ve decided what my name can be.”

John checked through his belongings and looked up, smugly noting how the Naga had lowered himself so John didn’t have to strain to see him, “Really? What is it then?”

The Naga smiled slowly and tilted his head, watching for John’s reaction, “It’s Sherlock.”

“Sherlock?” John echoed, standing up and carrying the suitcase to the stairs. “That’s…unusual, to say the least. Where did you pick that up from?”

“You don’t like it?” The Naga, or rather Sherlock, asked with a frown as he followed John, slipping between his legs briefly and almost tripping John up the stairs.

John kicked him aside with a look of annoyance, “I didn’t say that. I said it was unusual, but…the good kind. It suits you. Sherlock. It’s strange and unique, just like you.”

Sherlock practically preened at his words and rubbed up against him like a cat as John stepped into what would be his new bedroom, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” John smiled, resisting the urge to suddenly ruffle his hair. “Have you thought about a surname?”

“A what?”

“A last name? We humans have two names, sometimes even three. My name is John Watson. The surname, the last name, is often the family name.”

Sherlock slipped around John’s legs as John dropped the case on the bed and pulled out his mobile, “Ah, yes. Of course. Well, can I take your surname?”

John glanced at him, shooing him back gently, “I’d rather you didn’t…you don’t have to have a last name, I was just curious.”

“But I want one now—I had completely forgotten that you humans are supplied with more than one name. Names have not been that important to me, you see, as that sort of information had nothing to do with any interests of mine until recently,” Sherlock sighed, tapping his chin and then circling the room quietly, his tail brushing John’s ankles warmly. “I saw what you researched about me…”

John looked at him suspicious and wary, and then at his suitcase where his laptop had been placed, obviously it would have drawn some interest in the Naga, “Yes?”

“I want one,” Sherlock demanded, gesturing to the case, to the laptop. “I want a phone too.”

John eyed him, suddenly tense and alert, “…What would you want them for?”

Sherlock smirked at him and John narrowed his eyes at the expression, slipping his hand into the waistband of his trousers for his gun again, “To study, obviously. I can’t very well go out into the streets yet, can I? I know about such technologies and gadgets, of course, but I have never been able to… use them. With them I can learn more, and perhaps learn quicker as well.” 

“No,” John said firmly, setting his shoulders when Sherlock turned to face him. “Earn my trust first, prove to me that you won’t do anything…immoral or otherwise endanger me or the people of London, and I might just let you.”

Sherlock was slowly baring his teeth, looking dangerous and violent again, and John jerked forwards before Sherlock got do anything more, rounding the bed to stalk into Sherlock’s personal space, trying not to flinch when Sherlock hissed and showed his fangs in confrontation. John stood his ground and moved further towards Sherlock, toeing his tail out of the way roughly and leaning in until Sherlock relented and shrank back with a soft snarl, his ears twitching. John took another step forwards and Sherlock lowered completely to the floor sulkily, slithering under the bed. 

“I won’t do anything immoral,” Sherlock mumbled from his place. “What do you take me for?”

“Do I really have to answer that?” John replied, looking down at him with his hands on his hips. 

“I want to look up mysteries,” Sherlock admitted, resting his chin petulantly on his curling tail. “And I want to see if I can solve them. I want to do something! I can’t live without something to occupy by mind! I need puzzles, problems; I loathe the dull routine of existence that I’ve had to endure in my translucent prison. Now that I’m free I want to learn more, I want to research and absorb everything I think is fascinating and relevant to my interests. Music, science, crime…” 

John smiled at him and sat down on the edge of the bed to see him better, “Science, hm?”

“Forensics, chemistry, biology…” Sherlock murmured, glancing up at John and reading his expression and posture with a sudden smile, arching up to lean on John’s knees with his clawed hands lightly. “Could I not borrow your laptop and phone?”

“Sherlock, if you know those words, then you obviously know something about them--”

“Not enough!” Sherlock hissed, pressing down angrily on John’s legs. “I only know half of what I could know! I only know what that abhorrent woman allowed me to know, which was barely anything at all! She use to tease me, dangle and destroy books in front of my imprisonment just to irk me; she’d bring the Television into the room, only to then leave it turned off, because she thought it was funny to see how disappointed I was--”

John grabbed a handful of Sherlock’s hair abruptly but gently, and yanked him back by it slowly, “You’re welcome to read my books,” John said. “I have medical textbooks, as you should rightly know seeing as you packed my things… but the rest, the glories of the Internet, shall remain locked away until I can trust you. Are we clear?”

Sherlock hissed in reply and then pressed his lips together submissively when John tightened his grip on his hair, and sighed, “…Yes.”

“Good,” John said with a smile, letting Sherlock go and briefly, automatically, patting his head and shoulder, something that Sherlock seemed to lean into unconsciously as he looked away with a sulk. 

John hesitated at the reaction and then trailed his fingers up to Sherlock’s pointed ear, rubbing at the scales and feeling the arched tip with fascination, pulling his hand back when the ear twitched and Sherlock purred, then growled, frowning at John deeply. John swallowed and held his hands up in apology, nervously rubbing the back of his neck when Sherlock slid up onto the bed and moved to his suitcase to rummage through his books. A part of Sherlock’s tail body was draped over John’s knees and he looked down at it, feeling the weight of the muscle and following the shiny glimmer of each scale with his eyes; he wanted to touch and to examine, in fact, he wanted to do that to the whole of Sherlock’s implausible body. Everything about Sherlock was mythological and extraordinary and John hovered his fingers along the scales that warmed his waist. 

“Holmes,” Sherlock said at random, pulling John from his inspection of Sherlock’s tail.

“What?”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock said, smiling as he held up one of John’s Doctor Who DVDs “The Deadly Assassin” written by Robert Holmes, his claws holding it carefully. “What do you think?”

John couldn’t stop the curling grin that stretched his face and nodded, “Brilliant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting Sherlock in a collar is getting more and more tempting...
> 
> Also, I had to add in Mrs Hudson and because Sherlock wasn't around to get her husband executed, he is still alive. I realise that he was in Florida and such, but perhaps he fled back to England? We don't know the full backstory to him and for the purposes of this story, he is in London with Mrs Hudson, renting out the same flat.
> 
> Feedback is my fuel!


	6. Immeasurable curiosity

When Mrs Hudson opened the door with her own spare key and a tray of brownies, John had moved into the sitting room and was lounging with Sherlock on the sofa with his laptop on his knee and his phone in his hand. They had moved out of the bedroom to start unpacking John’s things not long after the talk of Sherlock’s name; the skull adorned the mantel and John’s picture frames and treasured objects were tidily placed around in an almost military fashion, his clothes hanging in the wardrobe and his shoes and coat in their respectable places. Sherlock had pushed the bag of money in the wardrobe in his own bedroom at John’s request, and then followed John around the flat with attentiveness, watching John’s legs move for the most part and then arching up to regard the flexing of John’s fingers when John had moved and placed down possessions. John had then phoned to sort out his moving out notice and expenses from his bedsit, and used his laptop to write up whatever he needed, all the while knowing that he was doing it all sort of backwards and much too quickly.

Sherlock reacted to Mrs Hudson first and ducked down, curling his massive tail about his body lighting fast with wide eyes and a soft hiss of surprise; and John leapt to his feet a second later and met her halfway to redirect her into the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder to see Sherlock slink away up the stairs to John’s bedroom, pulling himself along with muscled arms and a nimble body.

“Mrs Hudson, I thought I told you that I’d come and get them later?” John said as nicely as he could as his heart thundered in his chest. He wasn’t sure what Sherlock would have done if she had seen him; probably would have twisted her head from her body too. John had a vision of digging a ditch to hide body after body and shook it aside quickly, smiling at Mrs Hudson as she placed the tray down and looked around, a little shaken from being manhandled; John felt instantly guilty. 

“Well, you were taking such a long time, and so I thought that maybe you’d forgotten,” She said, with a soft laugh. “Is your boyfriend here yet?”

John sighed through his nose, “He’s not my boyfriend—we’re just friends, Mrs Hudson.”

“I hope he likes chocolate chip brownies,” She carried on, as if John hadn’t said a word, and turned to cut into the plush and delectable slices, making them smaller and then collecting a plate from the cupboard. “What’s his name then?”

“Oh, um, Sherlock,” John answered, fleetingly distracted by the way the brownies smelled. 

“Sherlock?” Mrs Hudson repeated. “What a wonderfully strange name!”

“Yes, well, he’s a wonderfully strange…person,” John muttered, looking over to the stairs to see Sherlock smirking at him from the bottom step, his expression and his sudden reappearance putting John on edge. He glared at him behind Mrs Hudson’s back and watched as Sherlock arched up on his tail, sniffing the air, and then tasting it, before cocking his head in interest. John suddenly hissed between his teeth instinctively in reaction and Sherlock’s ears flattened to his hair, then twitched, fanning out from his head oddly as he looked at John and lowered to the ground, moving back out of sight just as Mrs Hudson frowned and followed John’s narrowed gaze.

“Is everything okay, dear?” She asked in concern, looking back and forth and then touching his arm. “Oh! You…you don’t own a cat, do you? You’re not allowed pets, I’m afraid. My husband forbids it.”

John looked at her, “What? Ah, no. No cat. I just…I just remembered something…just excuse me for a moment,” he told her, holding back his blush of humiliation and jogging up the stairs and into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and looking around. “Sherlock?”

“Is that food?” Sherlock replied, slipping out from under John’s bed. “It smells positively delicious, who is she--?”

“You are to stay here,” John told him sternly. “Stay here and do not move until she leaves. Do we understand, each other? She cannot know about you—what were you thinking, coming back down? What if she had seen you, Sherlock? Then what?”

Sherlock eyed him sideways on, looking curious but frustrated, “She probably would have screamed. Or fainted from shock. I would have hoped it be the latter, fainting humans has always been so fascinating--”

“Shut it,” John cut in, stalking over until Sherlock shrank back and looked up at him under a section of his tail. “Stay here. If she ever comes back and I’m, for whatever reason, not here, I want you to hide and not let her see you no matter what. I very much like Mrs Hudson, and if you do anything to hurt or scare her…”

“Why would I purposely harm or frighten her?” Sherlock scowled, coming out to a height meant to intimidate and express his anger. “She has done nothing towards me. I hardly know her—It’s her husband I don’t like.”

John folded his arms and dipped his head, “Right, well…you can’t harm him either. As much as I also don’t like the man, you are to do nothing towards him or Mrs Hudson, and you are to hide and wait for me if they come in the flat.”

Sherlock showed his teeth in a mockery of a smile, “I shan’t harm… her.”

“Nor him,” John added, grabbing suddenly at Sherlock’s jaw as he dived at him with a snarl of disobedience. “Oi! Enough of that!”

“I can’t promise that,” Sherlock told him, writhing his body and then relaxing in submission. “You don’t know what he’s done.”

John frowned and relaxed his grip somewhat, “Neither do you.”

“I know he’s had several relations with many other women behind his wife’s back,” Sherlock said, flaring his nostrils. “I can smell the deceit from here!”

“…You can’t smell that.”

“He reeks of sex and blood and some other substance I cannot name. I don’t like him,” Sherlock growled with something like the beginnings of a pout, turning his head to rub against John’s fingers very faintly until John let him go. Sherlock moved back on his tail and then sighed huffily after John lifted his brows, and slid back under the bed respectfully. 

“Stay here and be good…and I’ll bring you up some brownies,” John said to him as he left, grinning widely when Sherlock beamed with an odd sounding trill of delight that had the resulting effect of making John laugh. As he went back to Mrs Hudson, he wondered for his sanity. Why he had hissed at Sherlock impulsively without a second thought before; was he perhaps taking his new alpha role too seriously?

“Ah, there you are!” Mrs Hudson said with a smile, holding a plate full of neatly sliced brownies. “I was just off to fetch you. Thought you’d gotten lost!”

John huffed and scratched the back of his neck, “Ha! Yeah, sorry—Thanks awfully for the brownies, they’re a lovely flat warming gift.”

Mrs Hudson tittered happily and opened her mouth to reply but turned when the door was pushed open by the rough hand of Mr Hudson. He stared at her and then narrowed his eyes at John before gesturing for her to go back down stairs with a motion that John automatically disliked.

“Come on, love,” Mr Hudson said gruffly. “Leave the lad alone now. I’m sure he has lots to do.”

“Right, of course!” Mrs Hudson replied, shooting John a shaky smile and then handing over the plate, retrieving the tray and knife from the kitchen. “Do let me know when your friend Sherlock arrives though, won’t you, John?”

“Course,” John smiled, patting her shoulder friendlily and watching Mr Hudson watch him. John lifted a hand in farewell as Mr Hudson finally turned and followed his wife down the stairs, and then John carried the plate into his bedroom, stumbling back a step when Sherlock shot out from under the bed and snatched the plate away in an instant. 

John puffed through his nose in annoyance but let Sherlock go and watched him curl up on the bed, sniffing and nosing at the brownies until taking a small nibble with his sharp canines. Judging by the way Sherlock’s ears pricked and trembled, John guessed that he very much liked the taste of them and stifled a grin, walking up close and admiring Sherlock’s body structure and tail again, using Sherlock’s focus on the food as a means to examine him in more detail. Although John had been close to Sherlock, at times incredibly close, he had not been in the right state of mind to actually get a good enough look at him, especially not a medical sort of look. John wanted to know how he worked, wanted to know the feel of his muscles and bones, and flushed with the excitement and anticipation to understand as he moved closer still. If only he could document him, if only John could show everyone what Sherlock was; there would be chaos at the sight of him, John knew; and not only that, but Sherlock would be studied and experimented on to find out how he truly came to be. John couldn’t do such a thing to Sherlock; even after everything he had witnessed the creature doing. 

“Do you like them?” John asked absentmindedly, wanting Sherlock to turn away from him to give John more leeway in observing him, and then forming an idea quickly on how to do that. He reached for the plate to take a brownie, and just as he had assumed, Sherlock growled low in his throat, bared his teeth with a loud gashing, and turned his body away to bend over the plate. The muscles in his forearms corded strongly as Sherlock leaned forwards and twisted his body further, and John grinned.

John moved himself nearer to Sherlock until he could literally feel the heat radiating from his body and see the interlinking texture of his scales, and perched himself on the edge of his bed. Did he shred his skin, like a snake would? The thought made John pause with a wrinkled nose as he imagined the state of the flat, filled with crumpled thin and vaguely translucent snakeskin; but he ignored the thought and reached slowly to place his hand on the small of Sherlock’s back, fingering the scales there and hoping Sherlock was too engrossed in eating to notice him. 

However, Sherlock tensed almost immediately and peered over his pallid shoulder with a mouth stained with chocolate; although after staring at John for a moment he then returned his attention back to the half empty plate, body relaxing under John’s callused fingers. John let out the breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding, and stroked his hand down Sherlock’s winding and curled body, not stopping until he came to the lazily shifting tail tip. John grasped it gently in his palm and smiled when it wriggled and rolled along his skin, tickling him. Sherlock’s body was warm and John wondered about body temperature in immense interest; Sherlock was part human and part snake, and John was curious to know if he was both an endothermic and an ectothermic or just one of them.

After sliding his hand back up, John trailed his fingers up the stretch of Sherlock’s back, fingering the scales that bloomed across Sherlock’s pale skin, and then pressed on the prominent bumps of his spine, feeling his way up to the arc of Sherlock’s shoulder blades and the slope of his neck. His bone structure felt tougher, thicker, the line of his spine was ridged and faintly spiked, and John leaned close to peer at them, tracking his eyes up to where Sherlock’s hair grew from between scale and skin, running his fingers through his curls to part them and assess the scalp. 

Sherlock’s ears twitched and he suddenly rotated around onto his back to face John, his tongue picking at the chocolate coating the corners of his lips as he stretched out obediently with an odd sound rumbling at the back of his throat. John gazed at the expanse of his torso with a somewhat timid smile and backed off to sit beside him on the bed, crossing his legs and watching as Sherlock shuffled towards him with an arched eyebrow.

“You…don’t mind, do you? It’s just that, well, you’re amazing,” John said, gesturing with one hand, instantly amused at the way Sherlock moved closer proudly and encircled him with his tail. “Completely illogically but amazing—can I ask you some questions? For instance, how do you regulate your body temperature? And are your kind born in eggs?”

Sherlock squinted at him, “The former is…difficult to explain; as I am not fully humanoid nor fully serpent, my biology is complicated. All creatures are able to control their temperature, either by external means or internal, I am able to do both when it suits me. I can use the sun, for example, to warm myself, or use some sort of insulation, but I can also create heat via metabolic processes as you humans do.” He answered in a rumble, draping himself over John’s crossed legs, head resting on his thigh. “As for the latter question; our females are ovoviviparous. The female carries the eggs within her body for some time, they do not lay and leave the eggs, as some reptiles and snakes tend to do. Once the young are born they are nothing like your human young and do not need that much looking after until they are able to look after themselves.”

“Do your females feed their young from their breasts? Do they even have breasts?” John asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, nodding softly. “We are much the same as you in that respect.”

John cocked his head aside thoughtfully, “Wait, if your kind give birth similar to humans, why don’t you have a navel?”

Sherlock frowned in confusion for a split second and then tipped his chin in understanding, “When we are born we do have scars where you would typically find navels on humans, but these scars heal up in time, leaving no lasting visible mark. Of course, there are always exceptions to this, and I do know a few of my kind whom have something that resembles a navel.” 

“Okay, what about nipples?” John asked.

“What about them?” Sherlock laughed.

John prodded Sherlock’s smooth, lean chest with one finger, “You don’t have them.”

“Yes, well, I don’t need them. I am not a female,” Sherlock replied, lifting a hand when John went to retort. “I know you human males have them, but that is because you all start off as female, correct?”

“And you don’t?”

“Well, if we do, then anything related to the female of our species disappears before we are born. Stunted by hormones.” Sherlock smiled. “I do not need nipples, therefore I don’t have them.”

John huffed but nodded and looked down Sherlock’s body, feeling uneasy at the next question that popped into his head but unable to stop it from crawling up his throat and tumbling from his mouth, “And your…genitals? Where are they?”

Sherlock looked intentionally down his body and pressed his hand to the area below his abdomen, where a human pelvis would be situated, “There is a slit, here. My genitals are not like yours, whereas yours hang outside the body, mine remain inside. I imagine it is nothing like you have seen before, which relates, again, to my complicated biology. I am partly humanoid, and so my penis is--”

“Okay! Okay, stop. I…I shouldn’t have asked—God. I have no idea why I did,” John muttered, rubbing his face.

“You are a man of science. You know the biology of humans, and so you are curious as to mine. It’s only natural that you’d be interested, John. There is nothing to be embarrassed about.” Sherlock told him with a dismissive and casual tone, lifting his body up for John’s perusal. 

John pushed him back down and shook his head with a nervous laugh, “I know, but it was…well, it was rude of me to ask such a personal question, whether I’m curious or not.”

Sherlock shrugged and the tip of his tail ruffled John’s short hair with something like condescending fondness, “I wasn’t offended by the question.”

“Are your kind social?” John asked abruptly, changing the subject and pushing Sherlock’s tail from his head. 

“Sometimes,” Sherlock murmured, body lethargic but eyes sharp and clear. “The females are more social than the males…”

John shot him a disbelieving look and meaningfully gestured to how Sherlock was closely pressed to John’s body, “Really?”

“You’re warm,” Sherlock said in a way of explanation. “And I didn’t say males weren’t social, just that the females are more so.”

“What do you eat?” John asked next, suddenly noticing that Sherlock had left four slices of brownies. Sherlock reached for the plate with one long arm and offered it up to John with a coy and impish expression that darkened a little when he parted his lips to answer John.

“I think you know the answer to that, John,” He drawled, flashing his sharp teeth and elongating his fangs until John gave his forehead a brisk and scolding tap.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have eaten those so quickly then,” John grinned, lifting his brow at Sherlock’s puzzled frown. “Bringing in a new sort of food might not…sit well with you. It’s like feeding a carnivore a bucket-load of fruit and veg after years of them just eating meat.”

Sherlock’s mouth downturned in worry and John laughed as he bit into the soft body of a brownie slice, leaning back on one hand as he chewed. Sherlock glared at him and in retaliation grabbed John’s jumper, rumpling it up his body roughly to slide a sharp claw through the blonde hairs trailing down under his navel with a sudden inquisitiveness that made Sherlock vibrate with a growling purr. John tensed and dropped the plate to the bed, grabbing Sherlock’s wrists and pulling his hands back with a firmness that he followed up with a stern, hard, look into Sherlock’s eyes.

“You got to touch me,” Sherlock rumbled before John had swallowed his mouthful to speak. “It’s only fair that I get to do the same.”

“You know about humans,” John countered after a brief moment of silence. 

Sherlock leaned into John’s personal space, looking dangerous and savage, “I’ve been fed humans whilst in my cage, piece by piece; I’ve dissected the dead, rotting, bodies of humans for fun and curiosity; but I have not examined one still alive before. You, John Watson, are a rarity.”

“Huh, well, in that case—let me think,” John said sarcastically, releasing one of Sherlock’s wrists to loosely grasp his throat. “Hmm. No. You’re not touching me.”

“You touched me!” Sherlock roared, his free hand clutching at John’s jumper.

“I don’t have claws like knives!” John retorted loudly, pushing Sherlock’s head back to expose his neck more with an impulsive squeeze that made Sherlock concede but not before scratching rebelliously at John’s jawline with the tip of one sharp finger and John clenched his teeth together as he felt the well of blood.

“If I wanted to kill you,” Sherlock said softly, his voice a rich baritone. “I would.”

John let go of Sherlock’s other wrist to take out his gun and shove it up under Sherlock’s raised chin, “Oh, yeah?” John whispered darkly, pushing back the bubble of fear and straightening his shoulders as Sherlock’s tail shifted and rubbed up John’s back with a slow unfolding arch that seemed apologetic. 

“I didn’t mean it as a threat,” Sherlock clarified.

“Well, it sure sounded like one.”

John wondered if Sherlock was planning something and narrowed his eyes but unhurriedly freed him and lowered his gun, keeping an eye on Sherlock as he looked at John and then moved forwards again to tamely rest his head against John’s chest. John allowed the movement, trying not to speculate why he did so, and after several still moments reached for another brownie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback fuels me!


	7. Bloody Claws and Body Bags

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bye Mr Hudson!
> 
>  
> 
> Hope you lovely people enjoy this chapter. You mustn't forget that Sherlock is a dangerous creature. He can be dark and mean and vicious. 
> 
> P.S. Sorry about the wait...and the image attached is my drawing. It's unfinished and should look better later when I have time to paint his skin and scales.

It had been a month and a few days since John had moved from his small bedsit to the spacious flat of 221B, since he had wandered into a strange shop to meet a strange creature that had later become his flatmate; his very strange snake-like, dangerous, brilliant, curious, flatmate, and John was still convinced that he was mad, or perhaps that he had always been mad. He had, after the first initial night with the creature, gotten into the habit of always thinking and hoping it was a dream whenever he’d woken up in the morning; John would lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling, and just hope and pray that that time, that time it would turn out to definitely be a dream. Perhaps he was dreaming in a dream, which could happen, which did happened, people did that; they woke up more confused and dazed for it but it still happened. John welcomed that dazed feeling with open arms, yearned for it, but each time he had woken up, stared at the ceiling, and hoped; Sherlock would choose that moment to slither into his room and lean above him, grinning with sharp, white teeth, and pulsing, hypnotising eyes that would send shiver after shiver down John’s spine.

So far they had, more or less, been living off the bag of money that Sherlock had acquired, but John didn’t want to continue using what he referred to as ‘blood money’. John wanted a job, a decent job, and wanted to pay his way, but he had been trying and failing to do such a thing for months; and in addition to that, John was very much afraid of leaving the Naga alone in the flat for extended periods of time. 

Sherlock would often stare at him with a dark expression that would set John’s teeth on edge, he wasn’t entirely sure if Sherlock was plotting his ultimate demise or just staring off into space, a hobby John noticed Sherlock did more often than not; as if he had settled into himself to work through some problem or to escape reality. John had brought up getting a job in conversation with Sherlock at one point, to which Sherlock had sniffed, narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth in displeasure; later Sherlock had then sneakily offered to get a job himself, that he had an idea about one, that he wanted to use John’s laptop, or better yet that he needed his own, but John had refused and sent Sherlock to the corner of the room after receiving a furious display of aggression and dominance in reply. 

Sherlock had continued to test John and try his patience with the shifting of control between them, no matter how short a time it lasted; however, from how he reacted most of the time, John had an inkling that Sherlock wasn’t the leader of his little family, that he wasn’t one of the alphas, not when he so easily submitted to John. Sherlock was inhumanly strong and quick, John knew that Sherlock could rip out his throat and eat his insides with just one slash of his claws if he wanted to, if he planned to, but Sherlock’s violence always seemed like an act, like he was puffing himself up to look big when he knew he was anything but, when he didn’t actually want to hurt John; not terribly so at any rate. John could still feel the ghosting of Sherlock’s claws around his throat, of his strong arm around his waist, and could still remember how easily it was for him to decapitate someone. Was it something to do with the bond Sherlock had spoken about, was it because of that which stopped Sherlock from so easily killing John on the spot? Perhaps Sherlock just respected John after seeing he wasn’t afraid and would fight with Sherlock if needs be, or was Sherlock only playing with him, like a cat does a mouse? How old was Sherlock in terms of his kind, was he a child, a teenager, or an adult? 

Sherlock didn’t touch him as much as he had the first several moments of their meeting, but he did continue to invade John’s personal space and stare at him with penetrating eyes, sometimes slithering around his feet like a cat or appearing from the corner of the ceiling, having had somehow held himself up there and watched John silently in a web of his own tail for hours on end.

John had also noticed that apart from the constant testing of dominance, Sherlock was becoming particularly overprotective over who got to talk to John and would hiss and snarl and full out growl whenever John was talking on the phone, and had even roared loudly when John had accidentally bumped into someone in the street just outside the flat and apologised; and John didn’t know how to feel about it. At present the protective behaviour wasn’t that much of a problem, but if he did indeed find himself a job, like he wanted to, like he was going to, then it might very well become an issue. 

John sighed and put the newspaper aside after circling a few new jobs, and then closed his laptop, put it aside, and walked into the bathroom. Just as he had assumed, Sherlock was there, lounging in the steaming, clear water that filled the bath; his entire body was crammed within, with only the tip of his tail hanging over the lip of the bath, curling and waving gently. John entertained the idea of locking him in the bathroom but eyed Sherlock’s sharp, clawed fingers and shook the thought aside.

“I need to talk to you,” John told him as he sat down on the lid of the toilet, leaning forwards on his knees and observing the way Sherlock snootily peeked at John from half-closed eyes. “I want a job. I need a job. That money won’t sustain us for long—”

“I can get some more,” Sherlock drawled, flicking water into the air with a wave of his claws. 

John sat up straight and set his face and shoulders, “No. I don’t want anything else from that…building.”

Sherlock slipped down until the water was just lapping at his bottom lip and glanced over at him, “I want a job too.”

“You can’t have a job.”

“Why not?” Sherlock demanded, huffing through his nose in infuriation, which sent ripples over the waters surface. “Why can’t I get a job? I’ll be bored—I am bored! There is nothing to do! I want—I need, something to do and occupy my mind with, something other than you.”

John swept an arm at him in annoyance, choosing to ignore the last bit of what Sherlock had said, “You’re a bloody big snake, Sherlock!”

Sherlock sat up and leaned his arms on the side of the bath with a glare, “I told you before; I have an idea! I know I can’t very well go out and get a job like you can, but I can still get one. In fact, I’ve made one up!”

“You can’t just make up a job,” John told him with a long-suffering sigh, rubbing his eyes. 

“Yes, I can,” Sherlock smirked, his tail writhing under the water like a black eel. “All I need is your laptop, or one of my own, and I can get it underway.”

John dropped his hand and regarded Sherlock tensely, “…What is it then?”

“A consulting detective,” Sherlock told him after a brief silence in which he squirmed in the bath and pressed his grinning mouth into his arm. “You humans are all practically stupid. I observe what you obviously do not; I know who killed those two children, remember? I could contact the police and—”

“No! No, definitely not!” John said sternly, standing up with his hands on his hips. “Sherlock, you can’t do that. They won’t take your word for it, they’ll want evidence, and they’ll probably want to meet you in person. Did you honestly think you could solve it in front of a computer screen? You really think it’s that easy?”

Sherlock dropped his chin on his hand and looked around the bathroom in mock thought, “Well…yes. I have it all planned out. Trust me, John.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t,” John muttered with a casual shrug, walking to the bathroom door slowly, disregarding the flutter of angered displeasure that shifted over Sherlock’s expression. “Stay here. Don’t leave the flat. I mean it. I’m…going out.”

Sherlock’s claws clacked sharply on the edge of the bath as he slipped back, sinking underwater sulkily, and John backed out and closed the door with a thoughtful frown. Collecting his coat, keys and folder of information, which included his new CV, John left, forcing himself to be polite as he passed by Mr Hudson in the hallway and stepped out onto the pavement, glancing over his shoulder to see Mr Hudson sneaking into the 221C with a hard and unfriendly expression on his face. John really didn’t like the man, though not as much as Sherlock seemed to, for reasons John hoped weren’t true; although the man sure seemed like the type and Sherlock had no real reason to lie.

John shook his head and walked to the curb to try and flag down a taxi, checking his wallet for money at the same moment. He thought of Sherlock’s proposal and tried to think of a way for it to actually work, but came up blank each and every time; it just wasn’t possible with him being what he was. What did he plan to do, frighten the police into listening to him? John still didn’t know what he was going to do in the coming future; exactly how long could he keep a massive snake-man a secret for? Someone was bound to find out, and then what? They’d capture Sherlock, test and experiment on him, find out where the rest of his family are, and either wipe them out or stuff them all in a zoo someplace. Why did John care?

He sighed to himself and tried to focus on the task at hand, finding himself a job. John looked up as he got out of the taxi and took in the sight of the clinic he had not yet tried to become apart of; John had tried other places, other doctor’s surgeries, as well as taking temporary jobs doing odds and ends. John had even done some volunteer work but had never stuck with it for long, having lost his patience with doing hard work for no pay. His girlfriend, or ex girlfriend, had also helped him slightly by allowing him to work with her in her bookstore for a time, and it had been enough to live by for a while until her store had been sadly closed down.

The person whom overlooked who was employed and who was fired at the clinic was a lovely looking woman called Doctor Sarah Sawyer, with light brunette hair and big blue eyes; and as she read over John’s CV he tilted his head and let his gaze wander over her soft, feminine, features, and the curve of her slender neck. She was just his type; in fact, John was already wondering if she would be as interested in him as he might be for her, until, of course, his thoughts brought up a mental image of Sherlock with his elongating fangs and his curling and writhing body. Sherlock could kill her on the spot, John could almost see it happening in front of him, could imagine him squeezing the life out of her, or of him speeding towards her to tear off her head or to sink his fangs into her supple throat with a low, vibrating growl of anger and possessiveness, eyes locked onto John with the same pulsing of his pupils. 

“Just locum work,” she said after a while, bringing John back to the present.

“No, that’s fine.”

“You’re, um ... well, you’re a bit over-qualified,” Sarah told him with small smile. 

John returned it as much as he could, “Er, I could always do with the money.”

“Well, we’ve got some away on holiday for about three weeks or so—might be a bit mundane for you this…”

“Er, no; mundane is good sometimes. Mundane works,” he replied, pushing the image of a gnashing Sherlock from his head.

Sarah glanced down at his CV, and softly continued, “It says here you were a soldier.” 

“And a doctor,” John added, smiling at her again, hoping it wasn’t as pinched and tensed as the rest of him was.

She looked down and away, shyly, “Anything else you can do?”

“I learned the clarinet at school,” John replied aimlessly, picking up on the way she considered him and smiled at him with a flush of warmth.

“Oh!” She laughed, amused, “Well, I look forward to it!”

John laughed in reply and watched with a tingle of interest as she smiled flirtatiously at him, her eyes looking a shade darker and her lips a little plumper. John really wanted to try his luck, wanted to ask her out, or at least flirt back with her, but he couldn’t risk trying to have a relationship with Sherlock becoming as possessive as he was; nor with Sherlock in his life in general. John couldn’t see a future without the Naga in it, and it scared and excited John in a maddening circle of insanity. He thought, again of a collar and a muzzle, thought of Sherlock as more of a pet, an untrained dog that he needed to lock up in a room whenever he wanted visitors to come around, but it wasn’t as simple as that, of course; Sherlock was stronger than a dog, smarter, quicker, sneakier, more dangerous. Immensely more dangerous. If John wanted to lock Sherlock up, he’d need stronger material, denser equipment; John would need to go back to the shop where Sherlock had come from. The woman had been able to imprison him, but how, how did she keep such a powerful creature in such a small and unassuming cage? 

John didn’t want to imprison him, didn’t want to lock him up or trap him, but if Sherlock carried on being aggressive, John would have no choice but to find ways of binding him and keeping him from endangering others, and John himself. John puzzled over it in the cab drive back to the flat, pondered if he should really be thinking about collaring Sherlock so often and with such significance, and sighed, rubbing his face tiredly. He would need to find a way to do more research and enter the shop again without Sherlock’s knowledge, something that would be extremely hard to do, given Sherlock’s sharp and observant gaze.

On entering the flat John felt a prickle crawl up his spine and frowned, turning to look at the door to 221C with a sudden sense of dread, feeling cold when he caught the thick scent of blood in the air. The door was slightly ajar and John shuffled silently near it when he saw the obvious smudges and splattering of red on the doorframe. His first thought was that Sherlock was right, that Mr Hudson was obviously up to something and had possibly killed something or someone inside of the room, but as he tiptoed up the stairs to his flat to retrieve his gun and his phone to call the police, that thought was replaced instantly at what greeted him, and John felt abruptly and dizzyingly sick as he stared at the door to 221B, finding it was also ajar. John breathed deeply and quietly through his nose and then pushed the door open and stepped in, searching for Sherlock with a terrible stirring in his gut that only increased when he saw no sign of the Naga.

John grabbed his gun from his room and made his way back down noiselessly, hesitating only briefly before he stepped foot into 221C with bated breath. The room was dimly lit and John squinted as he advanced inside, trying not to breathe though his nose at the rising smell of blood and death, and then tensing at the sound of slurping and munching and growling that only amplified in volume the further he went. Through the gloom John could make out three figures; two were bodies, and John stared at the first unfamiliar corpse of a young boy in his twenties with a frown, before he turned to the second and covered his mouth with his hand at the sight of Mr Hudson’s face ripped almost in two, one of his eyes slit open and oozing. Sherlock was bent over the gaping, jagged hole in his torso, Sherlock’s arms and head coated with blood and bodily fluids as he rummaged around inside Mr Hudson’s lifeless body; Sherlock’s tail was writhing in pleasure, and coiled and bunched behind him and half around Mr Hudson’s visibly broken legs. John was reminded of a nature documentary he had once watched with his girlfriend, it had been about lions, and John had watched, enraptured, as the lionesses brought down a Zebra and had later torn into it with sharp teeth and digging claws, their faces glistening red with blood as they shredded out chunks of flesh. John cocked his gun loudly and unexpectedly, and Sherlock stiffened, and then lifted his head, his face slick and crimson red. 

He eyed John’s gun and swallowed his current mouthful, licking his lips slowly, his fangs long and sticky, “Get the job then?” he asked casually, his ears twitching.

“What…have you done?” John said lowly, trying not to look at the state of Mr Hudson’s chest as Sherlock leaned further away. “You…you’ve—I should shoot you. I told you to stay in the flat!”

“This is part of the flat, John,” Sherlock replied, fingering a protruding and smashed rib with a claw, his other hand holding what looked to be part of Mr Hudson’s large intestine. 

“Get away from him!” John growled and took several steps forward, noticing that there was blood staining almost all of the floor and walls. “Get away!”

Sherlock hissed but lowered to the floor submissively, slithering back away from the body and curling against the nearby wall with a scowl, his teeth bared to show his annoyance at leaving his meal so soon. John adjusted his grip on his gun and stared at Sherlock, not knowing what to do about what had happened; Sherlock had killed before but John had reasoned to himself that it was to save him from the mad woman that had obviously killed others before him, but what was the reason for the most recent kill? The display of Sherlock eating had filled him with sharp, clouding fear, more than had overcome him previously; Sherlock had looked horrific and terrifying.

“Why?” John asked, glancing between the bodies. “Why did you do this? Why kill Mr Hudson and…and some innocent stranger?”

“I didn’t kill the stranger,” Sherlock spat, pointing a bloodied claw at Mr Hudson’s body. “He killed the boy, the stranger—look around you, John. What do you see?”

John narrowed his eyes and then flicked them around the room briefly, noticing the boxes and boxes of what seemed, on closer inspection, to be some sort of drug, which John had missed earlier because of his attention being solely on the splashing of blood and the sight of the bodies, as well as Sherlock eating a person’s insides. Mr Hudson had been running some sort of drug cartel, or had at least been dealing in some way with drug trafficking, and there was a gun on the floor, just out of reach of Mr Hudson’s rigid and lifeless fingers, that was fitted with a silencer and which had recently been fired. The stranger nearby had been shot at point blank rage, in the head, between the eyes.

“And you think that gives you the right to murder him and then…eat him?” John exclaimed angrily. “You should have told me and I could have contacted the police!”

“He deserved to die,” Sherlock growled, still low and submissive but dangerously furious. “And I was bored…and hungry…”

John glowered at him and then gestured with his free hand, “Put down what’s in your hand and come here. Now,” he ordered lowly, resisting the urge to step back when Sherlock obeyed, dropping the still steaming heap of intestine to the floor and sliding over to curl up at John’s feet. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Of the trouble you’ve caused? What about Mrs Hudson? Have you thought about her, about what this could do to her?”

“She’d be relieved,” Sherlock mumbled, glancing up at John. “Their relationship was purely physical and nothing more—”

“Relieved? Relieved that her husband, that someone she knew, whether he was a good person or not, was murdered and then half eaten by a monster?” John snarled.

Sherlock flinched and glared, hiding under a coil of his tail, “I’m not a monster. He was.”

John reached down, grasped Sherlock’s hair in rage and yanked him up to face level, “You have just ripped him asunder and eaten his internal organs! Who does that? What kind of person does that, Sherlock?”

Sherlock hissed and snapped his jaw, “I’m not a person!”

“No,” John agreed, shoving the gun into the vulnerable part of Sherlock’s torso and flexing his finger near the trigger. “You’re not.”

Sherlock stiffened and locked eyes with him, “You’re going to kill me?” he whispered.

“I should,” John muttered, digging the barrel of his gun into Sherlock’s skin roughly. “After all this, I should kill you…you can’t just go around murdering and eating people, Sherlock. I don’t care what Frank Hudson did, he didn’t deserve to be—”

“He’s killed more than this boy,” Sherlock told him, face still painted with blood. “He’s killed far more. He’s done some terrible, terrible things, John. He deserved to die, he should have been executed for his crimes years ago!—You disagree with me killing him yet you would kill me? Yet you shot and killed others? Why did you kill them? Because it was your duty? Because they were…bad people? Because they deserved it?”

“That was war! What happens out on the battlefield cannot be compared to what happens on the streets, in civilian life! You had no reason to do what you did; you didn’t kill him in self-defence or because you wanted stupid revenge or vengeance for the boy he murdered—you did it because you were bored, because you could, and because you were peckish! You know, you’re not even like a wild animal, at least they kill to survive… you don’t need to do that here, there was plenty of food in the fridge, there was no reason at all for slicing him open and eating him!” John glanced at the body, but looked away when his gaze fell on the split skull, the glistening of brain turning John’s stomach, “Where is Mrs Hudson?”

Sherlock’s tail shifted in a vague motion, “Out.”

“Out where? How long will she be gone?” John asked, not really expecting Sherlock to have all the answers but asking them anyway. “She can’t find this. She won’t find this—Christ, look at this place!”

Sherlock glanced around and then looked at John with an eager and daring expression, “She won’t find this, won’t see it…if you let me finish.”

John frowned deeply with a fierce stare, “…What about the drugs? What about the boy? This isn’t right, isn’t fair…he must have family, people who care about him?” he mumbled, still gripping Sherlock’s blood-soaked hair and still pressing the gun into him. “I had a feeling I’d be hiding bodies for you at some point…”

“I’ll take him,” Sherlock said softly. “Put him somewhere to be found by the police…”

“No,” John said. “They’ll look into his death, they’ll find evidence that—”

“Please,” Sherlock scoffed. “I’ve told you already, they’re a bunch of morons. I can make sure they never find out.”

“Bad news for his family,” John sighed.

“Good news for us,” Sherlock countered, pushing up into John’s hand in his hair softly with a faint, warbling coo that rumbled in his throat. “Let me go, John. I’ll set this right.”

“Next time,” John said after a few moments of silence in which he gazed at Sherlock and loosened his hold. “When I tell you to stay in the flat, I mean it, you will not leave our living space unless I say otherwise—and you won’t eat anymore people after today. Got that?”

Sherlock smiled slowly and the sight made John shudder in trepidation, “Yes, John,” he purred. “Oh, and that woman you met today? I don’t like her, don’t talk to her again.”

“I am not yours; you don’t own me, Sherlock. I can see and talk to and meet, whomever I please,” John told him and Sherlock rumbled intensely in response, quietening only when John nudged him sharply with his fingers against Sherlock’s scalp.

John let him go completely and watched Sherlock move back over to Mr Hudson’s body with hunger, uncaring of the blood that stained his scales, and John turned around to shut the door to 221C as he thought back to Sarah from the clinic and how she would look splayed open and then hollowed by Sherlock’s mouth and claws. He shivered and glanced back in time to see Sherlock dislocate his jaw to swallow a huge mass of flesh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback fuels me!


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